


Nine Lives

by Jaicen5



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Abduction, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 21:17:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 55,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaicen5/pseuds/Jaicen5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quite drink in the country while following up a lead has Doyle go missing.  Bodie has to use Doyle's old contacts in an effort to find what happened to him, before it's too late</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nine Lives

_I do not own these characters nor claim any right to do so  
This fanfic is purely for entertainment purposes only_

 

**Chapter 1**.

The innocuous building just off Whitehall that housed CI5 was relatively quiet for a change. At least to the agents it was quiet, some of whom took advantage of this unexpected lull in criminal activity to apply for seldom granted leave. For George Cowley, head of CI5, there was no leave, there were no weekends off either and it wasn't quiet for him. The new Minister was younger than his predecessor and fervent about decreasing the crime rate in Britain. To that end he was taking more than a passing interest in CI5, and Cowley found he was having to be more diplomatic than he was accustomed to.

“Fifteen deaths from drug overdoses in Manchester in the last month, George.” The Minister said, waving the report as though chasing a fly around the room. “Seventeen in Birmingham and ten in Leeds.”

“Aye. I read the report,.” Cowley said calmly. “But drug overdoses aren't part of CI5's brief.”

“Anything that threatens the home front of England is part of CI5's brief,” the Minister retorted and glared at the report again as though the paper itself were something offensive. “These victims are people's children, brothers, sisters.”

“That's true, but there are drug overdoses every day.”

“Not like this. The police pathologist has blamed the cut, George.” The Minister leaned back reflectively. “Someone is doing it wrong and it's killing our young people.”

Cowley strived for patience. “The drug squad Minister, I'm sure they've got good leads on it.”

“I'm told your men have good contacts in the criminal areas of London.”

Cowley didn't like where this was going. “These overdoses are in the north of England.”

“For now.” The Minister leaned forward again and stabbed a finger at Cowley. “As if that weren't bad enough. But if that dangerous mix finds it way south, becomes available here, in London, the casualties could be horrific. I don't want to see that, George and I'm quite sure that you don't. I want you to take this on. Send your men out onto the streets to their contacts and find out what is going on with this before it hits London. I'm quite sure the criminal element here would have knowledge of their counterparts elsewhere in the country; after all, their vast knowledge is the only reason they haven't been rounded up and charged, according to you. At least investigate the possible spread of this threat.”

Cowley stood up. “Very well, we'll look into it and if it warrants a CI5 investigation you can rest assured, I will give it top priority.” He left the Minister's office in a thoughtful mood. It was quiet, but it never stayed quiet for long in his experience and despite his objections to the Minister, Cowley was privately intrigued by the report. A badly cut fix was a one-way ticket to the morgue. It probably wouldn't hurt to get his men out after their contacts and see what came of it.

********************  
Rousing Bodie out of bed at the crack of dawn always gave Ray Doyle a vindictive stab of pleasure. Particularly if, like this morning, Bodie had a someone, both long legged and voluptuous, warming his bed. And especially if, like this morning, he hadn't quite got to the desired activity – which, if uninterrupted, would have been the culmination of all his charm and seduction to get that someone in his bed.

Bodie couldn't, in all honesty, say he appreciated Doyle's cheerful wake up call, nor his nasty sense of timing, particularly as he knew both were done on purpose. His lack of sleep, not to mention unwilling abstinence, didn't make for polite conversation, and Doyle's obvious mischief had gone down like a tonne of lead.

He rubbed his face irritably as Doyle drove his choice of car from the CI5 motor pool out of London, weaving skilfully in and out of the early morning traffic. “Tell me why we needed to go this early again?”

“Best time of day, this,” Doyle said brightly, overtaking a Volkswagen, as though it was standing still. “The air all crisp and sharp, the sun peeking over the horizon, every thing dewy and new.”

He overtook another car and zipped back in, with seconds to spare, before the oncoming van smashed into them. Bodie paid no attention to the traffic, even less to his partner's driving, which he trusted implicitly. “Doyle, it's still night-time, cocktails are still being served at Sparky's, the last train home hasn't left yet.”

“Traffic. Need to be there and back again by tonight for the club hours if we're going to find out anything at all about this pusher.”

Bodie groaned, slunk gloomily down in his seat, and closed his eyes. Doyle glanced at him, then back at the road a half smile tugging at his mouth. “Maybe you should try sleeping alone.”

“Maybe you should try _not_ sleeping alone.”

“Who says I do.” Doyle spun the wheel overtaking a slow moving Cortina and giving the oncoming lorry driver a near heart attack before expertly zipping back into the left lane, zooming speedily on towards the M1.

Bodie opened one dark blue eye and glared balefully at his partner. “You wouldn't be up this early if you didn't.”

Doyle's smile grew, and his eyes took on a familiar lazy, satisfied gleam, one that Bodie recognised all too well. Doyle said: “Unless she drew an early shift too.”

Bodie opened the other eye. “Early shift? Who? Who's on early shift?”

Doyle, clearly in good spirits, gave one of his low dirty laughs, which was obscenely cheerful for this time of morning and, to Bodie's way of thinking, could only mean one thing. That Doyle had indeed, not slept alone. Not that he did often; Doyle knew how to pull the birds when he wanted to. Just that Bodie hadn't been aware of this particular one.

“Who was it? Elizabeth?”

Doyle glanced across, gave a wide white grin, and shook his head, his youthful exuberance making Bodie smile in spite of his irritation.

“Well who? Not that nurse, what's her name? Hannah?”

“Nope.” Doyle returned his attention to his driving, his expressive greenish-blue eyes reflecting his good mood.

Bodie gave another half-hearted attempt to prod the information from his smug partner, before sleepily giving up. It was just too damned early. He yawned mightily, too tired to respond to Doyle's habitual baiting.

Doyle overtook another slow moving vehicle and Bodie roused himself enough to take an interest in the landscape outside the window. The morning was overcast, the air slightly chilly and the city was giving way to country.

“Where are we going?”

“North.”

“What north, north, as in North England north?”

“Real scholar you are. Geography your strong point is it?” Doyle glanced across and smiled again at his partner's sleepy disgruntled expression. “Jimmy hasn't been seen by anyone for a while. Not like him at all.”

“Jimmy? The heroin addict? The one that gave you the tip off for that haul in Soho?”

“Yeah, that Jimmy.”

“So why are we going north? And when are you going to stop for breakfast?”

“Cowley said that the bad cut was in the northern cities, didn't he?”

“Yeah,” Bodie agreed, in a tone clearly displaying his lack of interest.

“Jimmy was from Derbyshire originally.”

“We're not going all the way there!” Bodie protested, coming more fully awake with that unwelcome news.

“Not quite, he had a sister, unmarried, low income, small village, she'd come down occasionally, look in on him. Thought we'd drop in and visit, it's a nice day for a drive.” Doyle looked out the window in satisfaction as green fields sped by, each side of the motorway.

They hadn't been lucky in their investigations last night, well, apart from Bodie, who did get lucky, but not in the way Cowley had wanted. And Jimmy was nowhere to be found. Jimmy, who couldn't go without his fix and knew most of the heroin pushers on a first name basis, who'd been an addict when he'd drifted through those same northern cities. If anyone could name a few names it would be Jimmy Croft.

“Could have phoned,” Bodie grumbled.

“Yeah. If she had a phone.”

Bodie slunk back down and closed his eyes. “Wake me when you stop for breakfast.”

****************  
Anthony Canavagh did not look like a criminal. In all honesty he looked and acted more like an accountant. He dressed neatly in grey suits with pastel ties and was polite and courteous to all he met. In his community he was unremarkable, a rock solid example of boringness and instantly forgettable, an image he had worked hard to achieve.

But Canavagh had another side to him, a side that his cold black eyes hinted at when he was displeased. And this morning he was displeased. Things weren't going right this morning but in spite of that, he maintained his normal Friday habit of going for a ride on his motorbike. Canavagh was very careful to stay within his boring predictable routine, especially when things weren't going right. People didn't notice routine. To them he was just Mr Canavagh on his old bike, enjoying his normal weekly ride in the country.

Canavagh carried out his criminal activities in most unlikely way. In plain view. Astutely he reasoned that skulking down seedy, darkened back streets and clandestine meetings in run down pubs was much more likely to attract the attention of law enforcement officers than sitting in a park feeding the ducks and holding a normal conversation with a passer by. And so far he was proven correct in that he hadn't been nicked. Not once. And it always, without fail, went smoothly. Until now. And it nagged at him, this change of plans.

The deal for the arms shipment was ready to be finalised, but the deal for the grenades needed to be made at nearly the same time. He'd had to change the arms deal, make it earlier, meeting the buyer at the usual place and then sending his boys on to deliver the grenades. Moloney had to come first, the arms shipment for the IRA was a big order, and would ensure a tidy profit. It was all a bit tight in timing and worryingly coincided with his habitual Friday morning bike ride, but provided nothing unexpected happened, both deals could be finalised on the same day.

He patted down front of his leather jacket, a little uneasy at meeting Moloney at the pub, but it was far enough from home and Canavagh was very careful to have nothing to link his home to his dealings. Eamon Moloney was a tough customer, representing someone much higher in the order and he'd asked to see a sample of merchandise. Canavagh received the weapons from a source in Germany and would make a tidy profit from turning them over. He could turn over almost anything and make a good profit and both deals were too good to pass up over this unfortunate overlap.

Mind on the deal, he hoped Gagen had picked up enough muscle for the grenades. He didn't quite trust Stan O'Toole and a couple of extra lads wouldn't go astray, particularly the sort Gagen could get his hands on. They didn't ask questions and they didn't have any objection to dishing out rough stuff.

He opened the garage door to reveal his pride and joy, a Harley Davidson 1958 Duo Glide in mint condition, the thrill of it still giving him a rush whenever he started it up. Its throaty roar followed him out and down the country lanes along his usual route, but this time diverting to the scheduled meeting with Moloney.

********************  
Doyle pulled up in front of a small house in a small village about fifteen miles off the motorway. It was rather quaint to his eye, with garden beds empty for the coming winter and a rambling rose over an arched trellis gateway. Bodie got out and stretched, eyeing the overcast sky with disfavour. “Is it breakfast time?”

Doyle was already opening the gate and favoured him with a look that spoke volumes about his insatiable appetite, before walking up the path to the front door.

Bodie, from long habit, looked up and down the street then studied the house, becoming slightly more alert, automatically covering Doyle's back, although it hardly looked like he needed it. Then again, you could never be sure, the more innocent the situation, the more likely it was anything but, and he and Doyle had been minding each other's back for so long now, that it had become an unbreakable part of their everyday interaction.

Doyle knocked at the door, and leaned slightly against the jamb, trying to peer in through the lace curtains at the window. Bodie waited patiently by the gate. No answer. Doyle turned and tilted his head, his finely drawn brows raised in question. Bodie lifted a shoulder and thinned his lips, more interested in his breakfast.

“Can I help you?”

Doyle spun around at the voice before realising it came from above him. He stepped back from the door and looked up. Bodie looked up as well and flashed a brilliant Bodie smile. A young woman with wet hair was leaning out of an upper window, wrapped rather inexpertly in a fluffy pink towel. From his position directly under her window Doyle had a somewhat revealing view of the young lady's assets, and was temporarily robbed of speech. She smiled down at him encouragingly, and Doyle shot a quick look at his partner before his voice was restored. “Ah yeah, looking for Alice Croft.”

“Alice? She hasn't lived here for a good three months or so.” The girl sent him a slow appreciative smile, then tossed another one artfully in Bodie's direction. Good-looking men were scarce in her village, and yet here were two of them, right here on her doorstep, one smooth and dark and handsome by the car, the other impishly appealing with curls around his neck, wide eyes and a sinful mouth. Fit too, she noticed with growing approval. Hard lean muscles, open shirts, leather jackets and tight jeans; they looked like they knew their business all right.

“Do you know where she went?” Doyle went on gamely, trying hard to keep his voice normal, but an incredulous laugh laced it all the same. He glanced at Bodie again and his partner wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Doyle looked away quickly, fighting another urge to laugh.

“Back to London. Something about her brother not being well. Didn't leave an address.” The girl clutched her bath towel tighter as she leaned further out. “Do you want to come in?”

Bodie said, “Yes.”

Doyle said, “No.”

“She could give us breakfast,” Bodie said in loud whisper to his partner. “Come on Ray, I'm starving.”

“Shut up Bodie.” Doyle shook his head, but laughter lurked in his eyes as he looked back up at the girl. “Well, then, I suppose we'll be off. Thanks anyway.”

He'd turned on his heel to return to the car, when the girl spoke again. “You could try Mrs Cuthbert.”

Doyle stopped and tilted his head up again, curiosity written across his open face. “Mrs Cuthbert?”

“Yes, at the post office. Alice would have told them the new address.” At Doyle's blank look she prompted. “For her mail.”

“Oh yeah, right. We'll check that then.” Doyle wondered where his brains had gone. He ought to have thought of that himself. Still it wasn't every day a pretty bird leaned out a window dressed…well not dressed…. like that.

Bemused he turned and took another two steps and then turned back. “Thanks again, er…”

“Simone.” She provided her name with another inviting smile. “If you don't have any luck, come back and I'll see what else I can do for you.”

Doyle caught his lower lip between his teeth, as vivid images of what else she could do flew through his head in technicolour. “Thanks…er.. Simone.” He flashed another grin to his partner, still seeing the funny side. “We'll keep that in mind.”

Bodie shook his head, chuckling, as they got back in the car. “I despair for you Doyle, we could have had breakfast in bed.”

“It wasn't breakfast she was giving away,” Doyle retorted, starting the car, but his grin remained.

“Spoilsport.”

“Priapismic moron.”

Bodie shot his partner an amused look. Doyle remained in an unusually chirpy mood, his face open and cheerful, expressive eyes smiling; his low dirty laugh quick to roll out, and Bodie could only put it down to the relaxing morning out. A day away from CI5, a day without risk to life or limb, and the constant high tension of the job. Or, then again, it could just have easily have been his early morning tryst, which – Bodie recalled with a lot less amusement - was a pleasure he had forgone, thanks to his partner's untimely arrival.

Although Doyle was much easier going now, than when they'd first been partnered, Bodie still couldn't resist him in a good mood. “We could have tossed a coin,” he said, in reference to Simone.

“Waste of time.” Looking back over his shoulder, Doyle reversed the Escort, turning the wheel one handed. Stamping on brake and clutch he shoved the gear stick back to first and tilted his head at his partner. “I always win the toss.”

Bodie gave him a disgusted look and Doyle grinned shamelessly at him.

Awake now, Bodie rubbed his stomach. “So where are we having breakfast then?”

**********************  
 **Chapter 2**

 

Mick Gagen collected Tiny Dawson from his one room flat above the gym in the eastern part of town. Large, muscled and with rock hard fists, Tiny was a handy man in a fight. He'd been a weight lifter in his youth, had missed representing his country at the Olympics by tearing a hamstring only a week before trials and had floated in and out of honest and dishonest work ever since. Tiny quickly came to realise that the dishonest work paid far more than the honest work, and therefore was to be found in Gagen's company quite frequently. A quiet man by nature, he'd kept up his fitness and still bench pressed everyday in the gym downstairs.

Gagen also stopped to collect Terry Steele, one of Tiny's mates and a solid man to have in tight spot. Steele, if anything was even quieter than Tiny. Gagen didn't know much about him, save a nasty rumour about a dead wife and her lover, but Tiny had said he was okay and that was good enough for Gagen.

“Delivering the grenades today,” Gagen said. “We'll need Dougie.”

Tiny pulled a face. “He's trouble that one. Chip on his shoulder that'll do him one day. I know he's your cousin's kid, Mick, but he's trouble.”

“He's all right,” Gagen protested. “We only need the muscle to pack the car. No point bringing any of the other lads just for that, it'll keep the costs down till we need some real dirty work done.”

Tiny didn't answer but his expression registered disapproval. Ignoring him, Gagen pulled up at a rundown council flat, where Dougie Fenton was staying with his on again, off again girlfriend, a single mum on social security benefits. Rubbish bins overflowed and stray dogs were digging through the fish and chips papers strewn about the pavement.

Fenton slouched out and got in the backseat. “What's this job then?”

“Just a backup to a deal and offloading the grenades,” Gagen told him, pulling away from the footpath.

“When am I going to get some real action, a bank robbery or something?” Fenton complained. “And a shooter. I could have stayed in London and done this sort of stuff.”

Tiny looked significantly at Gagen. Gagen felt a rush of irritation. “When you grow up! You want to go back to London? Have Harry's boys find you? You know what he said he'd do if he found you back there again.”

“Where we meeting the boss?” Tiny asked as Fenton lapsed sulking into the back seat.

“Usual place.” Gagen turned the wheel and headed out along the country road. “Moloney wants to see a sample and then he's going to set up the next arms delivery, while we deliver the grenades to O'Toole.”

**************************  
George Cowley was drawing a blank on information regarding the northern drug problems. His agents came in two at a time, like Noah's Ark, and each report was the same. A marked silence. They hadn't heard a thing, so it meant small fry - according to their sources. Cowley remembered the statistics on the report. Not that small fry to his mind. Doyle and Bodie hadn't checked in as yet and he wondered what those two tearaways had come up with. He pressed a button on his phone and the dispatcher answered immediately.

”Get me 4.5 and 3.7”

“Yes sir.”

Cowley waited a moment before hearing Bodie's voice. “3.7.”

“Alpha. Where the devil are you two?”

There was a pause where Cowley could hear rushing wind and a well maintained engine and faintly, that low laugh of Doyle's and then Bodie's voice came back. “Was it Tina? The one from the bakery?”

Cowley was baffled. “3.7?”

“Er…North. Sir.”

“North? Where north?”

There was another pause before Bodie answered, humour he couldn't quite disguise coating his voice. “Er, according to 4.5, north England, north, sir.”

Blasted pair, clowning about as usual. Cowley's lips thinned. Bodie certainly picked his moments. He ignored their silly bantering from long practice. Give them the slightest hint of encouragement and they'd go on for hours back and forth between themselves, like a tennis match. “Any luck with this drug dealer?”

“Not yet sir, we're chasing up a lead as we speak though.”

“Keep me informed. Out.” Cowley broke the connection and stared thoughtfully at the phone. Doyle's ex copper instincts were still sound, reliable. That his two top agents were checking leads in the north was promising, even if Bodie wasn't taking it seriously.

******************  
Mrs Cuthbert was home with the flu. Doyle passed on this information in a little café where Bodie was tucking into bacon and eggs, and strong coffee with obvious enjoyment.

“Aren't you having breakfast?”

Doyle glanced at the plate and then up to his partner. “Already had it.” Mischief danced across his face. “In bed this morning.” His eyes again took on that lazy satisfied gleam that Bodie recognised all too well. “With afters.”

Bodie narrowed his eyes sourly at his opposite number. Despite throwing names into the air all morning, he hadn't yet found out who Doyle had slept with the night before and had a strong suspicion that Doyle was going to leave him hanging all day. He returned to his food, idly running through the many women that Doyle knew, considering and discarding possibilities and wondering how best to pry the information from his annoyingly clammed up team mate.

Doyle nursed his cup of coffee, expressive eyes reflective, and Bodie, always attuned to his partner's mood, could almost hear Doyle's thoughts, clicking over at their usual phenomenal rate. They said that the eyes were a mirror to the soul and in Doyle's case it was certainly true. Everything that Ray Doyle felt, showed in those wide greenish-blue eyes of his – a formidable weapon in the right circumstances, and birds fell for it, hook line and sinker. Including the one last night, apparently. Bodie reached for his own coffee, dumped in three sugar cubes, and said: “I suppose you want us to go and see her then, this Mrs Cuthbert?”

Doyle lifted his eyes up from his cup, and fastened them on his partner; humour briefly appearing on that boyish face. He flipped his hand dismissively in Bodie's general direction, and said: “Wouldn't dream of it mate. We've come all this way just to get you a hot breakfast. Couldn't possibly ask you to go and check on an address for a case as well.”

Bodie looked down his nose at his partner. “Well the country air is doing me the world of good.”

Doyle ran a thumb gently around the handle of his cup and said in all seriousness. “It's not like him to disappear, he's set in his ways and he needs his fix.”

He leaned back and became utterly still again, in that way he had, staring at his coffee cup. Bodie took one narrow look at him, noted that stillness, that preoccupied expression. And immediately began shovelling in food - that stillness warning him, louder than a fire klaxon, that his partner was on to something. And if - as experience had taught him - that something clicked into place, they'd be up and gone whether Bodie had finished eating or not.

Doyle had been out of the force for some time yet his copper's nose was still there, strong as ever, that sixth sense he had for things not quite right still working overtime. Doyle remained utterly still, and Bodie kept eating at a rapid pace, until he finally cleared his plate. He picked up his coffee cup, and drained it, eyeing his partner warily.

Bodie generally went along with Doyle's instincts whenever he got a strong feeling about something - as he was usually proven right - and now that he'd finished eating, he was feeling relaxed and indulgent.

“Well, we'd better go see Mrs Cuthbert then,” he said expansively and shoving his plate away, rose catlike to his feet. He waited until Doyle joined him then offhandedly added. “Was it Grace? The stacked one, at the club?”

******************  
Mrs Cuthbert proved elusive. The directions they'd been given were vague and it was a good fifteen or twenty minutes before they found the right house. She answered the door, eyes watering, tissue in hand, looking for all the world like a Mrs Santa Claus, with her snow white hair and round glasses perched on her button nose.

”Mrs Cuthbert?” Doyle asked uncertainly, as she sneezed loudly.

Audrey Cuthbert looked him up and down and then her dark brown eyes took in Bodie, standing bemusedly at his partner's shoulder. “Is it the electricity reading again?”

“Er no,” Doyle said, not daring to risk a glance over his shoulder to see the expression he knew would be on Bodie's face. He cleared his throat and reached into his jacket for his ID. “We just want to ask you a few questions.”

Audrey looked at the ID, then peered into the young man's face as though to confirm the identity. “I didn't think the police allowed long hair and clothes like that.”

Doyle heard a choked snort from just behind him and struggled to keep his face straight, resisting, with difficulty, the strong urge to send an elbow forcefully into his partner's midriff.

“Undercover mum,” he told her solemnly.

She paused to dab at her nose then swung the door open. “Well then, you'd better come in. I'll put the kettle on.”

***************  
 **Chapter 3**

 

The Horse and Hounds didn't have an original name, but it certainly was an original old style Inn. It had been standing in its present spot for several centuries and probably would for several more, provided, that is, that no greedy developers came along and appropriated the land for a housing estate. Once upon a time, horses were rested here on their long journey's north and south and highwaymen lurked in the fog and darkness always ready to hold up a coach full of wealthy passengers.

The small lane at the side of the pub led to the large rear courtyard, but the current publican had erected a fence, complete with a small gate, so Gagen parked in the lane beside the gate, and turned the engine off. He could see into the back yard of the pub, saw the various outbuildings and pens, still standing where they'd always been, although abandoned and neglected now, as though mourning their former glory. Canavagh was late; there was no sign of his prized Harley, either inside the yard or in the lane.

They got out of the vehicle and stretched, pulling coats tighter; doing up zips and buttons against the cool air. Steele went to the boot and opened it up, removing a large black holdall. Behind them another car drove slowly into the lane and pulled up behind theirs. Eamon Moloney sat behind the wheel, suspicious, careful, his fingers remaining on the ignition keys as he warily surveyed the waiting men. Gagen wandered nonchalantly over, nodded to the man. “Still waiting for Canavagh, we'll meet in the stables when you're ready.”

He led Fenton, Steele and Tiny into the yard through the gate. Moloney watched them and stayed in the car.

****************  
“Fancy a drink?” Bodie asked as Doyle drove in his usual fast and competent way down the road, back to the M1. A pub was up ahead, one of those quaint country ones that reminded you of Dick Turpin and Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice.

“You've just had breakfast,” Doyle protested.

“Get away, that was hours ago.”

“Not to mention, tea and scones and biscuits, with Mrs Cuthbert.”

“Well we couldn't very well refuse could we?

”We! What do you mean we?”

Bodie pulled an injured expression. “Well someone had to eat it, poor old love going to all that effort.”

Doyle shot him a sceptical look.

“Anyway tea isn't a drink is it? Not a proper one.”

“We're back on duty tonight you know.” Doyle showed no signs of slowing down. “We have to get back, check that address.”

“C'mon Doyle, we're never off duty.” Sometimes his partner was a stickler for the rules, a remnant from his police days that he couldn't seem to shake, although he broke them often enough when it suited him. Bodie knew how to get around Doyle. He leaned conspiratorially across the handbrake and said. “I'm buying.”

Doyle turned his head, a half smile tugging at his full lips, and Bodie nodded solemnly at him.

“Well in that case,” Doyle's right foot eased off the accelerator. “I'm drinking.”

He slowed down and turned into the little lane beside the pub, and parked opposite the entrance. Bodie alighted rubbing his hands together gleefully. “Nothing like a little road trip in the country to build up a thirst eh Doyle? What'll you have?”

Doyle considered making Bodie fork out for something expensive then decided against it. After all, he'd come out on this jaunt when he could have stayed in bed and considering the light-hearted joking of the morning, Doyle was rather glad he had. “Lager.”

A faint rumble in the distance behind the pub had both men looking up surprised. A storm was brewing, dark clouds still a good distance away, but a cool breeze was up regardless. It was a cold autumn so far. They looked around, eyes recording details automatically, as they crossed the lane. The countryside was peaceful, the pub quiet, only two other cars were evident, parked further down towards the back of the building.

Bodie pulled the door open and Doyle stepped in, straight into Dickens. It wasn't authentic surely, but it seemed like they'd stepped back in time all the same, dark wood and red furnishings and bubbled glass at the windows.

“Hello.” Bodie's smooth handsome face had done the customary glance around the interior of the taproom and now locked on the only thing remotely of interest to him. “What have we here?”

Doyle followed his gaze to the girl attending the bar. Young, blonde and pretty, she was definitely Bodie's type. Doyle slid his eyes sideways, to see his partner already adjusting his expression to be both charming and appealing, and Ray Doyle sniffed strongly in forbearance, knowing quite well that the challenge for Bodie lay not in the ability to seduce the girl, which was a given, but in how long it would take.

“Just don't forget my lager,” Doyle said pointedly. He wandered over to a table by the window and tried to look out. The glass was ancient, thick, complete with a greenish tint similar to a coke bottle. Bubble-like imperfections made it impossible to see through. Doyle manoeuvred around the chairs and instead unlatched the frame, pushing it open with the heel of one hand. Dust coated the sill and a startled spider scurried outside the minute a gap presented itself.

A noisy rumble could be heard, approaching from a distance, shattering the peace, growing louder and louder, until finally a motorbike appeared, slowing, turning to putter into the lane. Doyle watched in envious admiration as the leather-clad rider rode slowly past and turned into the back yard of the pub through the gate. The bike looked to be a classic; a vintage Harley Davidson of some sort, beautifully maintained and Doyle gave a low whistle, immediately itching for a closer look. He glanced back at the bar.

Bodie had the barmaid's avid attention now, she hadn't yet poured the beers, instead she was writing something on the back of one of the cardboard coasters. Doyle shook his head at his partner's skill. Bodie collected phone numbers like bees collected honey, his smooth, dark, handsome features infinitely useful in his avid pursuit of the opposite sex.

He wandered back to the bar and Bodie briefly glanced up at him. Doyle tilted his head to the rear passageway and raised his brows in that silent communication they had perfected over the years.

Bodie had heard the bike and Bodie knew his partner. Rarely could Doyle walk past a classic motorbike without examining it, and for once Bodie didn't mind. It was inevitable that Doyle would want to have a look and include a quick chat to the owner about their mutual passion, which would give Bodie more time with this very pretty barmaid. He gave his partner a slight nod in acknowledgement, but made no move to accompany him.

Turning back though, he saw to his chagrin that the barmaid had also noticed Doyle, and was blatantly looking at him in an appreciative, interested sort of way. Doyle, being Doyle, noticed her noticing and his eyes took on a decidedly roguish look. He glanced first at Bodie, making sure he was watching, then back to the girl, winked mischeviously and gave her an inviting half smile before sliding those expressive eyes back to his partner to judge his reaction.

Bodie didn't disappoint. He inhaled strongly, glared balefully at his partner, and said: “Thought you had a date with a bike?”

Doyle grinned unrepentantly at him. Bodie scowled back. What was it, with Doyle and women? All wide eyes and beguiling face, Doyle certainly knew how to use what nature had given him. That Bodie also knew how to use his own God given charms was beside the point. He flapped his hand dismissively to his partner and expertly coaxed the girl's attention back to where it belonged. On him.

Leaving him to it, Doyle turned and angled out through the back corridor, past the amenities to the door by the kitchen. The rear of the old pub seemed to be historically intact, various out buildings, chicken coops and stables remaining where they had likely been placed over a century before. The air was brisk, a slight wind getting up, tossing his hair annoyingly into his eyes. The impending storm rumbling faintly in the distance and he fully zipped up his leather jacket, jamming his hands into the pockets to keep them warm.

The Harley Davidson sat in all its splendour, a good distance from the back of the pub, in the small doorway of the old stables, where in a bygone era, coach and horses had rested to be fed and watered before resuming their journeys. The overgrown field crept up to the edge of the fenced yard and the stables were open to both the stile and the path beyond, clearly advertising a resting place for ramblers, and refreshments in the pub, should they require it while negotiating the walk from the lower valley during the summer months. It was quiet and peaceful.

Eyes admiringly on the restored motorbike, Doyle made his way across the deserted cobblestones and to the double door of the stables. Muted conversation came from within and at his approach several men looked up startled.

“Nice bike,” Doyle offered, by way of greeting, running his gaze appreciatively over the gleaming chrome, attention solely on the beautiful machine before him. The men in the shed subtly shifted, forming together, like a flock of nervous sheep and Doyle suddenly had the most unsettling sensation.

His copper's nose twitched and he looked up, gaze sharpening, eyes raking in details – the men, five of them, the interior of the stable, the holdall and the blue black barrel of something put hurriedly, and ineptly away - his brain faithfully recording what he was seeing into his memory. The men shuffled agitatedly again, and the air was suddenly charged as though a bolt of lightening had struck close by.

Doyle was not Bodie. Doyle had spent his early years behind the protection of a uniform, then later a badge. His instincts were sound from those early years, his coppers nose able to detect criminal activity a mile away but Bodie had spent those same years in a jungle, where slow reflexes ensured a quick death. Doyle's reflexes, while not as sharp as Bodie's, were still astonishingly fast and had been honed by CI5. Bodie would have been suitably impressed, and perhaps not a little proud of his partner, had he been there to witness what came next.

An unwelcome itch between Doyle's shoulder blades warned him someone was there, appearing from around the side of the shed like a wraith. The air shifted behind him, ghosting across the curls around his neck. His sixth sense screamed danger.

Doyle ducked and flung himself sideways just as a solid length of metal pipe slammed into the side of the stable, in the exact spot where his head had been seconds before.

“You bastard.” His attacker, face contorted with rage and hate swung again, barely pausing in his murderous intent.

Instinctively Doyle reached for his weapon, but his jacket was zipped up. Forced to abandon the search for the zip tab in favour of blocking the second lethal swing, he wrenched the wrist holding the pipe until it dropped with a clang on the cobblestones, while his knee lifted and slammed into the nutter's midriff. His attacker fell to the ground, both arms clutched around his stomach, trying to gulp air in a wet wheezing manner. But his pals had moved in, barely before Doyle had regained his balance and suddenly it wasn't a fair fight.

Again he tried to reach into his jacket, cursing as the closed zip hindered his access, the tab elusively evading his desperate attempts to grab it while fending off a jabbing fist, but then he was forced to duck another blow and there were three now.

God, where was Bodie when he needed him, he thought indignantly as he traded punches left and right. Chatting up a bit of skirt while he was dodging a trio of nutters that would like nothing better than to see him smashed to a bloody pulp and hung out to dry.

The fight moved erratically across the rubble strewn around the edge of the stables, cobblestones come loose and piled haphazardly waiting to be refitted.

Doyle stepped sideways from one wild swing; simultaneously slamming a fist into the man on his right and his left foot, bearing his full weight, came down awkwardly, rolling on the loosely piled stones. He felt a peculiar tearing sensation and scarlet pain clawed up the outside of his ankle. Momentarily distracted he shot a quick glance down.

But the first man was moving in again, and Doyle's attention snapped back, automatically adjusting his weight ready to kick his assailant where it would do the most damage. The manoeuvre began well, he'd done it a hundred times if not more in the past, but this time Doyle's left foot refused to cooperate, ankle collapsing amid another red-hot stab of pain - and ultimately saving his life.

Unnoticed, the third man had scooped up the metal pipe and swung it mightily down towards his unprotected head, a move that would have smashed Doyle's brains into his rib cage had he not staggered from his misplaced left foot. Missing its intended target, the pipe instead thudded into the wall before rebounding, glancing a lesser blow just behind his right ear, ploughing on down into the collar of his leather jacket and scoring a jagged rent in shirt and flesh.

The result was instant. Doyle dropped like a stone, sprawling across the cobbled courtyard. He did not get up.

**Chapter 4**

 

“What the hell are you doing?” Canavagh, coming forward from the dim interior of the old stable was outraged. In one single moment, one reckless decision by that idiot Fenton, their harmless meetings at this country pub had been ruined, blown wide apart.

Fenton tried to drag in a breath, but Doyle's blow had winded him. “Cop…he's… a copper.”

Aghast, Canavagh gaped at Fenton, then swung his head to stare down at the man in the scruffy jeans and leather jacket, unconscious on the ground in front of him, blood beginning to pool under that curly hair.

“A copper? Not possible. How they hell would they know? They can't… Are you sure?”

Fenton dragged himself to his feet, wheezing, grasping the edge of the stable door to steady himself. “I'm…I'm sure…all right… did a …five year stretch…thanks ..to him.”

“Why weren't you watching the pub like you were told?” Gagen cut in, wiping a smear of blood from his nose alternating his angry gaze between Fenton and the unmoving body on the cobblestones. Whoever this bloke was he could fight, and fight well, he'd very nearly bested all three of them and it put the wind up Gagen good and proper.

“Having..a…piss be..behind…..” Fenton gulped in air, gestured vaguely to the rear of the stable, and straightened up a bit more, gaze never leaving the object of his fury. His face was hating and unforgiving as he snatched the lump of piping from Tiny's meaty hand and raised it with every intention of finishing the job.

“No!” Canavagh reached out a hand to stop him. “Not here you fool, use your loaf. We'll have every cop in a fifty mile radius on to us.”

“Don't care.” Fenton shook him off, still livid, unable to see past his need for retaliation. “He's got it coming to him.”

“I said no!” Canavagh was furious. A whole month's worth of negotiations, at risk of going belly up, all because of this one maniac. He turned to Moloney who had remained in the shed, looking justifiably annoyed.

“You got the cops on your tail?” Moloney stated in an unfriendly tone. “You led them here.”

“No.” Canavagh's cold black eyes stared back. “There's no way they know, he wouldn't be alone if they did. He's just one nosey copper. I'll take care of it.”

“The deal's off if the cops know.”

“I said I'll take care of it. The deal stands. No one is going to know what this cop saw.”

Moloney stared hard at him. “He saw my face. If he fingers me, it'll lead to the boss. He won't like that, he won't like that at all.”

He took out a gun, cocked it and pointed it at Doyle's head.

“He won't be identifying anyone,” Canavagh's voice became low and lethal, and he stood in front of Moloney. “I said I'll take care of it. I want to know how he found me here. You pull that trigger and you'll have coppers moving in here faster than you can get to confession. Leave him to me, I'll make him talk first and then get rid of him.” He took a step closer to the taller man, stared right back at him “I'll meet you for the exchange as planned. You won't get those weapons for that price anywhere else and you know it. This cop's as good as dead, but I cover my tracks and I want to know how he found me.”

Moloney paused again, correctly assessing Canavagh's mood. Finally he nodded and, sidestepping around the body lying unmoving on the cobblestones, disappeared to his car parked outside the gate. They heard it start up and drive away.

Canavagh ran a hand distractedly over his face and made a snap decision. “Tiny, get him in the car.”

“Just leave him here,” Gagen protested not liking this.

“We can't, we don't know what he knows.” Canavagh hissed angrily. “And Moloney's right, he saw us, he can identify us. Identify him. You know what will happen if they think we've grassed on them.”

“Then finish him,” Gagen argued.

“Not yet!” He stared at Doyle, mind working furiously. What to do with him? He couldn't kill him, not yet, not till he knew how the man had found him out. And how many others knew about it. He couldn't dump him, dead or alive, that would spark an angry investigation that could ruin this whole weapons deal. But if he disappeared for a bit, it could give them some breathing space, surely no one would miss him for a couple of days. He was out here alone. At the very least no one would immediately think it was a kidnapping and he'd be able to use that time to question him. He made up his mind.

“Take him to the ruin.”

“Are you mad?” Gagen protested. “All the stuff is there.”

“There's nowhere else to take him. Make sure he's secure and then get on with what you have to do, we can't lose this buyer, not now and not over some nosey minor copper that can't mind his own business.” Canavagh felt trapped and didn't like it. Nor did he like Gagen arguing with him. “Do as I say. Take that shooter back with you and get the grenades out to the airfield.” He prodded Doyle's prostrate body with his boot. “We'll deal with him once the sale is done.”

Gagen gave him a hard look, then gathered up the holdall, shoved the barrel of the gun into it properly and zipped it closed, before trotting off towards the gate.

“Tiny, put him in the boot.” Canavagh turned to Fenton, saw the murderous look still in his eyes. Fenton could yet blow the whole thing wide open as undisciplined as he was. He wouldn't put it past the idiot to put a knife between the copper's ribs when no one was looking. “If he isn't breathing when I get there, Fenton, you'll be joining him.”

Fenton looked up, into Canavagh's cold black eyes. He looked angry but Canavagh stared him down. Fenton finally nodded and contented himself with getting a kick into his hapless victim before Tiny moved in.

Ray Doyle lay in a heap, eyes sealed shut, blissfully unaware of how close he had come to never waking up again.

***********************  
Bodie's flirting with the pretty barmaid was cut short by the emergence of the bartender from the back room. He shot Bodie a pointed look and told the girl to get more lemons from the kitchen. She gave Bodie an apologetic shrug while handing over his change. Pocketing the coins, along with her phone number, he gave her a promising smile before picking up the drinks and turning around, noticing immediately that Doyle hadn't returned. He wandered across to the window, setting the drinks on the table and looked around absently for his partner.

The sun broke briefly through the clouds, bathing the road outside with brilliance. Bodie could hear sparrows squabbling in the hedge outside the window, another rumble from the approaching storm, before the peace was shattered, by the throaty roar of the motorbike.

Bodie shook his head, tolerant of his partner's obsession with motorbikes. Unhurriedly sipping his lager, he worked his way between the chairs to the window that Doyle had opened and, like his partner, tried unsuccessfully to see through the bottle-like quality of the old glass. He pushed it further open and leaned out into the cold air, not in the least surprised if Doyle had managed to con a ride out of the owner. Doyle knew how to get what he wanted, the considerable appeal of one cheeky smile sufficient enough to overcome any feeble attempt of refusal.

Throttle open, the bike went screaming past in a hurry, its rider muffled in black leather. It wasn't Doyle, the rider far too weighty to be his slim partner and Doyle wasn't wearing black leather anyway. Looked like he hadn't conned a ride after all. Half expecting his partner to come in behind him, Bodie grinned and leaned out of the window, enjoying the sudden sun after the overcast morning, although it wouldn't last long if that thunder was anything to go by.

Looking left down towards the open fields, Bodie saw that the brown Ford Granada, parked near the narrow gate leading to the yard behind the inn, had its boot open. It was some distance away and as he watched a man came out, throwing a black holdall into the back seat and hurriedly inserting himself into the driver's position. Bodie only half paid attention, vaguely wondering where Doyle was now that the motorbike had disappeared.

Another man walked out and Bodie turned away, uninterested, but a sudden flash caught his eye, the sun catching something metallic and he idly swung his head back again, back towards the men getting ready to leave in the car. Bodie was relaxed, at ease, thoughts elsewhere, and his eyes flicked over the scene, only half aware of what he was seeing. And what he was seeing was so unexpected, so unlikely, that his stunned mind didn't quite grasp it for several precious seconds.

A large strongly muscled man had followed the others. He had a limp, slim body jack knifed over one shoulder, meaty arm grasped around long denim-clad legs. Lengthy curls spiralled down, hiding the victim's face, his left arm dangled uselessly, wristwatch catching the sun again, sending another flash straight into Bodie's disbelievingly eyes.

He knew those legs, how fast they could run, had often scorned the tatty condition of the jeans in which they were clad, to their impervious owner. Had ruffled those curls countless times to wind him up. The large man leaned forward, unceremoniously dumping his burden into the boot of the car and Bodie's reflexes finally snapped into gear.

“Jesus Christ!” Bodie reversed backwards from the window like a rebounding canon after firing its load, and in a burst of raw desperation was sprinting for the front door, knocking over chairs in his haste. Outside he heard the car start up and pure panic had him blindly and recklessly increasing speed.

Rounding the corner, he skidded full tilt into a waiter carrying a large tray of glasses. The waiter hadn't a hope of staying upright against Bodie in full flight, and went careening backwards, the glasses sailing airborne to smash in a million glittering shards on the tiled floor. Bodie recovered instantly, pushed himself away from the wall. Crunching through broken glass without so much as an apology, he leapt over the prostrate waiter, hauling his gun from his holster as he made for the entrance.

The car was roaring, screeching onto the road in a cloud of dust as Bodie, swearing ripely, exploded out of the front doors, Browning auto up in both fists, ready to fire. He had no chance. It was long gone. And his partner with it.

************************  
 **Chapter 5**

 

A storm was approaching, the air was charged, dark clouds gathering ominously, both in the sky at the back of the inn, and on the grim face of one half of his top team. Cowley eyed Bodie in some concern, as the latter stood alone by the stable door, staring down at the sticky bloodstain left on the cobblestones, face pale and hard as marble.

Burwood straightened up, glass vials in his hand. He had taken samples of the blood, three separate ones, from the larger mass at the stable doors, following the trail of drips to the smaller one by the roadside. He cast Bodie a nervous look, well aware that the ice-cold exterior was holding in a terrible anger.

“We'll get these analysed as soon as possible, sir,” he assured Cowley, placing the vials into his briefcase. “No bullets, nothing else really to speak about, just the metal pipe, and it's old, ferrous, not much chance of prints.”

“Aye.” Cowley was unsurprised. And it didn't need a forensic analysis to know whose blood had been spilled, whose blood coated the end of that metal pipe. The helicopter had got them here in record time, and that time was vital to pick up any clues before the storm hit. Murphy had been sent in to interview the bar staff and for the moment Cowley was alone with Bodie.

He watched his agent shrewdly, while he considered the best way to handle him. Cowley knew his men better than they thought he did. He was well aware that Bodie's first loyalty wasn't to CI5 and probably never would be.

CI5 came second to Ray Doyle and, not for the first time, Cowley wondered at Bodie's past, what it was that had made Bodie so distrusting of everyone, except the one man he called friend. And now Ray Doyle's overactive copper's nose had once again landed him in trouble and Bodie hadn't been there to watch his back. And that failure, coupled with not knowing Doyle's whereabouts or condition would be hammering at him like an incessant fishwife.

He walked over and stood beside his smooth handsome agent, sensing Bodie's mood, his powerful frame tense and ready to explode.

“All right, what have we got?” he snapped, brusque, normal, hoping to arrest Bodie's slow burning fuse which was well and truly ignited.

“Not a lot.” Bodie shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded at the ground. “Doyle gone, leaving behind half a pint of blood and by now probably buried in a shallow grave in a ditch somewhere, waiting for a little old lady's pet poodle to dig him up.”

Cowley looked up sharply. He knew Bodie too well, knew he was in agony for the safety of his partner, and that the flippant, callous words covered up the deeper fear Bodie wouldn't admit to considering.

“If he were dead, they wouldn't have taken him” he reasoned, trying to alleviate that deeper fear. His thoughts momentarily strayed to his missing operative.

Doyle's sixth sense should have warned him that they were being followed; he was extremely adept at spotting trouble, yet he'd been bested. “Doyle's not easily surprised, how did they get him?”

Bodie shrugged irritably and lifted his gaze from the bloody cobblestones to stare out over the fields at the imminent storm clouds. “He came out to look at a bike.”

“Bike?” Cowley latched onto this, needling, prodding his agent unmercifully. “Whose bike? What sort of bike?”

“Harley or something.” Bodie rubbed a hand across his eyes. “You know what he's like with them.”

Cowley did know, but this wasn't helping. “Did you see them?”

“Not clearly, the biker rode past me, bloke in black leather, should be able to find him no trouble.”

Cowley ignored the sarcasm. “You do want to find your partner don't you Bodie?”

Bodie swung his head, eyes blazing and stared at his chief. “What sort of question is that?”

“Then try to be helpful, you know the man best,” Cowley barked at him. “Who would want him?”

“Who?” Bodie gave a short cynical laugh. “Don't you mean who wouldn't? Doyle's got more enemies than I've had hot showers.”

Faces and cases from his past, paroled and released, only to watch and wait for the opportunity to exact their revenge. How many times had Doyle brushed off this concern with a resigned shrug, stubbornly unwilling to give any of them the satisfaction of being worried or frightened. Even Preston hunting him down and damn near killing him had failed to impress upon Doyle the need for caution, although the same couldn't be said for his partner.

It may not have taught Doyle prudence, but it certainly ensured that Bodie was more vigilant in watching Doyle's back, knowing they were out there, that his partner was a constant target. And now someone had succeeded, right under Bodie's nose, making a mockery of his vigilance.

Fear coated his anger and irrationally, he aimed it squarely at his missing, impetuous partner. “He collects them; the more the merrier and the only ones I know about are the ones that have already had a go at him. Who knows how many are still inside, waiting their turn? If he kept a lid on that bloody curiosity he wouldn't have half as many as he does.”

“His curiosity, as you put it Bodie, has been responsible for some fine breakthroughs, both for us and the Met,” Cowley pointed out. “Prisons make for long memories.”

Bodie nodded furiously, pushed beyond endurance. “Right, great retirement plan for Ray then hey? I wouldn't bother with the gold watch, he's not going to need it.”

“It's his job! It's your job!” Cowley brutally got back to the matter at hand. “Now do your job! Did you see any others?”

Bodie glared at his chief, but Cowley didn't given an inch. He knew how to handle Bodie.

“Four, the first three I couldn't tell you much, two in their mid to late forties, the other younger. The one carrying Doyle was big, muscley, like a weight lifter. Short hair, normal clothes.” Bodie paused and inhaled, angry. Angry with them, angry with Cowley, but more angry with himself for not being there, for being unable to prevent it. His hands were shaking with that anger and Bodie shoved them back in his pockets, away from his weapon snug in its holster, under his left arm. He took hold of his anger with effort, focused it and controlled it, as Cowley had taught him. “By the time I got outside they'd gone, turned left at the road.”

Bodie's jaw set and Cowley could see him closing down, wiping all emotion from his face, something he hadn't done for a long time, not since he was first paired with Doyle, but Cowley wasn't fooled. It was still there, bubbling under that ice-cold surface, biding time, waiting and Cowley knew that when it was unleashed, there wouldn't be much left of the men responsible for Doyle's disappearance.

“You didn't try to go after them?”

Bodie nodded to the Escort, still sitting where Doyle had parked it on the opposite side of the lane. “Doyle had the keys in his pocket.”

Murphy came out of the back door and crossed over to them, avoiding both the bloodstain and Bodie's hard gaze. He knew full well the powder keg Bodie would be, with his partner missing, and he had no intention of lighting the fuse. “Publican says that the stables are used by lots of people, mainly ramblers on the walking paths during the summer. He doesn't mind if they stop, because they often come in for a drink as well. Motorcycle clubs frequently rest here and use it, as well as pony clubs. He doesn't check them and doesn't stop them. So long as they don't vandalise the place they're welcome.”

“Who knew you were coming here?” Cowley asked Bodie and Bodie blinked frowning.

“No one, Doyle's been looking for an informant he hadn't heard from in a while. The sister lived out here and we just stopped off for a drink on the way back.”

“Were you followed?”

Bodie shook his head but his eyes narrowed, speculatively. “No, least I don't think so and Doyle never let on he sensed a tail.”

“Did Doyle have his RT on him?”

Bodie nodded. “I tried to reach him while waiting for you. Nothing. They've either taken it off him, or he can't respond to it. Or he's.…”

He trailed off and stared at the ground again, but both Cowley and Murphy knew what he'd been going to say. Even if he couldn't get the words out.

“Find this informant, Bodie,” Cowley said, knowing that whether he made it official or not, Bodie had already latched onto this one tiny bit of information and would do it regardless. “Talk to Doyle's contacts, find out who would want him badly enough to follow you out here. If we work fast we may get to him in time. Murphy, you find the owner of that motorcycle that Doyle was so interested in, try all the clubs first, see if you can narrow it down.”

Murphy nodded and they all looked up as a flash of lightening split the sky. Thunder growled and the rain finally began, dropping heavy wet splotches on the cobblestones, mixing with the bloodstain so that it diluted and spread like watered down red ink. Bodie's eyes were hard and his jaw clenched as he resolutely lifted his gaze from the red rivulets. Without another word, he turned to the gate and the waiting police car.

********************  
 **Chapter 6**

The storm followed the Granada as it travelled across a lonely stretch of moors, rain pelting down, flooding the windscreen so that Gagen was forced to use the wipers at full speed. The land had been in the Canavagh family for generations, great tracts of nothing, inhabited by sheep for the most part and occasionally the remains of small cottages, reminders of long ago. Far removed from the main walking tracks that crisscrossed the moors in this particular part of the north, the isolation proved extremely handy for the illegal activities and storage of fenced goods, which was the prime source of Canavagh's wealth.

The car travelled sedately along deserted overgrown roads, occasionally slowing down for milling sheep and mud puddles where the ancient road had disintegrated away. The rain eased slightly as they approached the grassed track to the ruin. The ancient farmhouse stood on a slight rise, uphill from the stream, which wove, in its meandering fashion, across the heath, giving relief to the emptiness with its tree shrouded banks.

Gagen drove up the track to the ruin and parked by a large sign that proclaimed the house to be dangerously unstable and forbidding entry under any circumstances. It certainly looked it, hewn slabs of rock strewn about the grounds half buried, the weight of their impact sinking them solidly into the earth. Three walls remained, the upper floor patchy the roof gone. Ravens had built their nests in the few remaining rafters.

The men alighted from the car into the soft drizzle. Scowling at the desolate landscape Gagen moved around to the boot and unlocked it. A city boy, he hated the moors with a passion, always gave him the creeps - ever since he'd read Hound of the Baskervilles as a kid. The wind blew eerily across the deserted landscape and he tried to shake off a persistent feeling of foreboding. No one ever came out here, it was private land, no rambling tracks, no scenic views, and Canavagh had been storing goods here for years. No one was ever likely to find the lad, but he was still ill at ease.

Remembering that hard fist to his nose and having no desire to repeat it, he opened the boot cautiously, ready to slam it back on the boy if he so much as moved a muscle. But Doyle lay where he had been dumped, skin an alarming shade of grey, eyes sealed shut, blood still wet, soaking his collar and neck. For a minute Gagen thought he was dead, hoped he was, and he certainly looked it, but then noticed the faint rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. Well it wouldn't be for long, once Canavagh had questioned him.

Tiny reached in and without visible effort pulled the lad out by one arm, tossing him over his shoulder as though Doyle was a sack of feathers. Fenton followed, eyes glittering hatefully on Doyle's lax body as Gagen, ignoring the sign, led the way into the ruin and to the north corner. A padlocked iron gate was set firmly into the stones at the base of the wall, blocking a stone spiral staircase, which led down into the ancient cellars.

Attached to the gate was another danger sign, strongly warning, again, of the unstable condition of the building and forbidding entry. Gagen took a key from his pocket and unlocked the padlock, opening the gate. It was well oiled and opened silently on its hinges.

They padded silently down the stairs and at the bottom Gagen paused to check that the crates lining the walls were secure, chained and padlocked shut. Dim light filtered through the cracks and small gaps in the ancient stonework above, giving the room a dull soft glow, illuminating the remains of the arched ceiling, the stone walls and the paved dusty floor.

Tiny bent down and none too gently dumped Doyle onto the floor, in the process opening the barely clotted gash above his ear which sluggishly began to bleed again, seeping and dripping into his hair.

Gagen crossed over to the unconscious man and stared irritably down at him. He seemed young, boyish, his slender build, curly dark hair and those wide eyes - black lashed and sealed shut - giving the illusion of a lad. But Gagen's nose still throbbed and he remembered the hard look on that youthful face during the fight. A tough man, despite his deceptive appearance.

“He doesn't look like a copper,” he accused, idly pushing the lad with his foot, still unhappy with Canavagh's decision to bring him here.

Fenton was sulky. “Well he is.”

Gagen bent down on one knee and reached to pull the tab at the neck of Doyle's leather jacket, unzipping it down to the waist. He yanked it roughly open and the shoulder holster sprang instantly into view. Gagen froze for a moment, eyes locked on that damning piece of evidence. If he was a copper, he wasn't an ordinary one and another flutter of agitation clenched his stomach.

Fenton saw it as well, and sucked in his breath in an altogether different reaction, as Gagen reached in to remove the Walther P38 semi auto. Fenton's eyes gleamed, fixed on the oiled blue-black weapon with a strange kind of lust. Gagen hefted it in his fist then laid it aside and Fenton's eyes followed it.

Gagen gazed uneasily at Doyle and continued rifling through his clothes, plucking out items with the deft efficiency of a pickpocket. His yield included a set of handcuffs, a radio transmitter, car keys and a small wallet which he flipped open. Speechless, Gagen stared at it for a minute, then turned on Fenton savagely. “I thought you said he was a cop!”

“He is.” Fenton jerked his eyes away from the gun, faltered. “Well, he was five years ago.” He gestured defensively to the handcuffs. “He must be to have those.”

Gagen stood up and his fury was laced with something else, something very much like fear. He thrust the ID out for Fenton and Tiny to see. “He's CI5. Top of the tree. Jesus Christ. We've only gone and snatched a CI5 man.” He ran a hand distractedly through his hair and glared at his hapless victim. “Knew he was too good to be an ordinary copper, the way he took us all on. I told Canavagh we should have left him.”

He bent down again, and ruthlessly patted down Doyle's jeans, re-checking all his pockets, emptying out a penknife, some cash, the keys to the handcuffs, spare ammunition, a small set of metal rods, which he vaguely recognised as lock picks. He shoved the lot in Fenton's direction retaining only the handcuffs. “Take all that and put it in the car.”

Hurriedly he reached out and pushed Doyle's shoulder, rolling him, like a rag doll, over onto his side. Then, pulling his arms roughly behind his back he snapped on the cuffs, one on each wrist, giving them a cruel tug to make sure they were firm. Only then did he sit back and wipe a hand over his sweaty face, thinking hard. He looked up at Tiny. “Find some rope.”

Fenton, cradling Doyle's belongings in his arms, looked bewildered. “Just lock him in, he ain't going anywhere cuffed.”

Gagen stood up, pushed roughly past him and began to search the room, removing tools, knives, any implements that even remotely could be used as a weapon. “You don't know anything. He's CI5, if there's a way to get out of those cuffs, he'll find it. Then he'll be after us.”

“Then just kill him.”

Gagen took a last look around. “Kill a CI5 man? Are you mad? You think they won't track us down anyway? Real hard cases those boys. You saw how he could fight; he would have beaten the lot of us if Tiny hadn't brained him. He's trouble whether Canavagh likes it or not. If CI5 are on to us, killing him ain't going to make a difference.”

“We can't let him go,” Steele said in his low voice. His eyes were on the CI5 agent and they were intense with implied menace. He too, had bruises, sore spots where Doyle hard fists had landed and his dislike of the agent was clear.

Gagen exhaled and reluctantly agreed. “No we can't, we'll have the police and every law enforcement agency in the country on to us if he talks. But he was alone at the pub so it could be that his mates don't know anything yet, or they'd have been with him.” He stared moodily at Doyle, at his motionless body, his cuffed wrists, the blood soaking his collar. “This couldn't come at a worse time. Not with Canavagh finalising the arms deal for the IRA. We can't let him go, but damned if I know what to do with him.”

Tiny reappeared with a length of rope from the boot of the car. Gagen gestured towards the man on the floor. “Tie his legs and ankles Tiny and for God's sake make sure he can't move an inch. Then you and Steele get those boxes of grenades ready for O'Toole.”

Gagen's precautions puzzled Dougie Fenton considerably. The man didn't look at all dangerous in his present condition but Gagen was acting like he was a wild escaped animal. He looked down at the haul in his arms and his eyes again fell on the pistol, gleaming blue black and Fenton's look became cunning. His hands almost of their own accord shifted the agent's belongings until he could stroke the barrel of the Walther P38, lovingly running his forefinger along the cold metal and then gripping the butt, feeling it solid and powerful against his palm.

Gagen, attention on his prisoner, seemed to have forgotten about the gun. Fenton, watching him like a hawk, slowly brought the weapon towards the pocket of his jacket. Gagen didn't look up and Fenton stealthily slipped Doyle's handgun into his pocket where it sat, an unaccustomed weight and Fenton felt shivery with the secret knowledge of it.

While Tiny was tying the final knots in the rope binding Doyle's ankles there was a very faint grinding noise from the far wall and a small shower of pebbles fell and scattered over the floor. They all froze, waiting until it subsided. Tiny stood up abruptly.

“One day that whole wall is going to come down,” he predicted nervously.

“It's been doing that for years,” Gagen said, but he too sounded nervous. He gathered up all the items that he deemed likely to aid the CI5 agent if he woke and edged to the stairs. “Let's go, we've got work to do, and he ain't going anywhere now. With a bit of luck he'll be dead by morning anyway. And if not, Canavagh is likely to finish him soon as he knows what he is.” He gave a short sinister laugh. “After he finds out what he wants to know.”

The room was silent after they'd gone, broken only by the gate at the top of the steps clanging shut and the click of the padlock, like a seal on a tomb. Doyle didn't move, oblivious to the car starting and driving away, and equally unaware of another small shower of stones from the unstable far wall.

And he certainly had no knowledge of the face that appeared in a small gap in that unstable wall, though being both young and single, he would likely have given her a second approving glance if he had. But his expressive eyes remained shut, his head wound dripped and the girl crouched in the gap undecided, her face a mixture of apprehension and fear.

****************************  
 **Chapter 7**

 

Bodie wasted no time the minute the police car delivered him back to London. Cowley made only a half-hearted attempt to get a report from him, but knew he was wasting his breath. Bodie barely paused before taking the stairs to the motor pool two at a time. He signed out the silver Capri and dropped into the drivers seat.

For a startling minute it felt all wrong. Strange, something missing. He looked across to the empty passenger seat and had a momentary flash of Ray Doyle sitting there, foot up against the dashboard, elbow on knee, hand propping up his chin as he nutted over their latest case. Bodie's mouth firmed in a hard line. It didn't seem right that he wasn't there. He shoved the key into the ignition.

“Just hang on mate,” he muttered and thrust in first gear. The Capri squealed out of the underground car park with an impressive cloud of blue smoke.

Alice Croft had a small flat in an area of South London that Bodie recognised as being one of Doyle's ex patrol beats. As a copper, Doyle seemed to have trod a beat in every down and out rough area in London and Bodie was constantly amazed that his partner had got to the age he had, relatively unharmed. And just as unsurprised at the number of grudges he had collected along the way. As Cowley had said, prisons made for long memories, and Ray Doyle had put away his fair share.

Alice Croft was fortunately at home. A thin world-weary woman in her fifties, she unlocked the door to the opening jingle of a popular television game show and seemed reluctant to admit her young visitor and risk missing it.

Bodie was having none of it. His temper was dangerously close to the surface and if this woman knew anything that would assist in finding his partner in time, she was bloody well going to tell him. He flashed his ID and without waiting for an invitation pushed his way into the small dingy council flat where the telly was propped in front of a single armchair. Bodie glanced quickly at the screen.

“I'll have a P, please Bob,” Bodie quoted the catchphrase of the game show, deliberately standing in front of the set, dark blue eyes hard and narrowed. “Or maybe just a J.”

Alice gave him a look of intense dislike. “What do you want?”

“J for Jimmy.”

Yer a bit late ain’t ya?”

“A bit late for what?” Bodie was past playing games and his tone indicated as much. Alice got the hint loud and clear.

“Jimmy died four weeks ago,” she said bluntly, folding her arms across her skinny frame. “Natural causes.”

Bodie sneered. “Natural causes? For a junkie?”

Alice flushed and looked suddenly nervous. “His heart gave out. Is that all you want?”

Bodie hesitated. If Jimmy had died a month ago, then he would have no connection with Doyle's disappearance and Bodie felt a wave of frustration at the dead end. But what about the badly cut heroin? Maybe Jimmy was a victim of that? “Where was he getting his fix?”

Alice scowled at him. “How should I know? He's been on the stuff for years, surprised he lasted as long as he did.”

Bodie watched her intently. She didn't seem upset by the idea of her brother dying, but some people were like that hardened to everything life threw at them. Trying to mind guess why people thought as they did wasn't Bodie's strong point, and he usually left this sort of interrogation to Doyle. Bodie had a feeling that Doyle would have disapproved of this woman's attitude, would have pushed it further.

“Did he go up north recently to get some? Birmingham? Manchester?”

She looked astonished. “No, not for years. I spent most of me life coming down to see him, thought I may as well move down here permanently. He stayed in London right up till the end.”

He pondered what to do next. “Do you have the death certificate?”

She scowled at him, face lined and harsh from hard living and went to fetch it. Bodie glanced at it, but the cause of death was double dutch to him. He did however memorise the attending doctor's name just in case. He handed the certificate back and took his leave. Alice slammed the door behind him.

Bodie stood on the street in front of the Capri and thought about what to do next. Dead ends were common in their line of work but this time it mattered an awful lot more. It was Doyle's life on the line. And he still didn't know _why_ his partner had been snatched. They were off duty for god's sake!

Bodie smashed a fist down on the roof of the car then leaned both hands against it, flexing his powerful shoulders, the image of his partner being dumped unconscious into the car boot refusing to go away. Doyle and his bloody curiosity. Bodie reflected moodily, that if curiosity killed the cat, then at least this particular cat had nine lives and was adept at getting himself out of tricky situations. But how many lives had Doyle used up? The traffic passed slowly by and still Bodie stood, hands braced against the car roof deep in thought.

He had a nagging feeling he was missing something. Something important and he tried to backtrack, to start at the beginning when Doyle had quite casually broken into his flat, disturbing his early morning tryst to cheerfully announce the drive into the country.

Someone _must_ have followed them, although he wasn't entirely convinced that neither of them would have spotted the tail. But he had nothing else to go on. Clearly he needed to find out if anyone was holding a grudge against Doyle, enough to follow them out of London and snatch his partner from that pub. It still didn't ring true to Bodie and he wished that Doyle were here to lend his copper's intuition.

Why trail all the way to Derbyshire, when they could have easily have done the job here? And why now, today? He and Doyle had been assigned monotonous obbos in a seedy part of London for the past month and Doyle would have been a much easier target there.

Bodie ran through likely possibilities and kept coming back to Jimmy. Doyle had been looking for Jimmy during their enquiries last night in the clubs. But Jimmy was dead. Of natural causes, according to the sister. Did someone not want them looking for Jimmy then? Had someone seen Doyle last night while they were searching the nightclubs for the pushers and taken spontaneous action?

Maybe Doyle ran into a piece of his past, someone out for revenge. Maybe something happened to him, while Bodie was chatting up the lovely long legged Penny. It would by typical of Doyle not to mention it, and they'd parted about then, Bodie remaining to seduce the delicious Penny and Doyle leaving to head home alone. Or so he'd thought at the time.

Bodie tried to think of anyone with enough grudge to go to all this trouble. John Coogan sprang immediately to mind, but Coogan was lying low, aware of Cowley's close scrutiny of his dealings. And Cowley was well aware of Coogan's revengeful leanings towards one of his top agents and Coogan knew that too. He'd be an idiot to try for Doyle now, although no doubt one day he would, and Coogan hadn't eluded the law for as long as he had by being an idiot.

Someone else then. The girl Doyle had slept with last night? Doyle hadn't spilled the beans about her identity, which meant that she was probably someone new. Was she a plant to find out what Doyle was doing today or was she just a willing bed partner? Doyle had no trouble picking up women, but being who he was, some of them weren't all they appeared to be, as Bodie knew all too well from his own experiences. How on earth could he find out? Might be worth checking his flat. Blast Doyle, why hadn't he told him who she was?

Bodie dropped into the car and his temper simmered with the irony of it all. This was Doyle's area, Doyle's expertise and Doyle's contacts. He needed Doyle to find Doyle.

Still there were a few people worth looking up before checking Doyle's flat, and Bodie pulled out into the traffic, and headed back into the city.

************************  
Dougie Fenton couldn't believe his luck. Gagen seemed to have well and truly forgotten all about the CI5 agent's gear, including the gun, and the weight of it in his jacket pocket made him feel ten foot tall. Fenton had never seen Gagen in such a rotten mood, the presence of their prisoner in the ruin making him jumpy and short tempered.

Fenton thought he was overreacting. The CI5 man didn't look dangerous. What could he do? He was trussed up like a chicken and would stay that way, subject to anything they chose to dish out to him. How could anyone, including his organisation possibly find him all the way out there in the ruin, no one had seen them remove him from the pub or dump him in the boot. To all intents of purposes, he'd just vanished off the face of the earth and when Canavagh got to him it would likely be permanent. Canavagh wouldn't have anything muck up his deal with the IRA. Not for the sort of money he'd be making from it.

No, the CI5 man was at their mercy, at Fenton's mercy, once Canavagh got his information. Now he was armed, he could repay him for his five-year stretch. He could shoot him bit by bit, if he felt like it, drag it out, make him suffer the way that he'd suffered in the nick. Fenton liked that idea.

A shooter made all the difference now. No one would tell him to grow up or get a job or do something useful with his life. Not now he had a gun. He walked down the street, head held high, knowing he could blast anyone that looked at him sideways into smithereens. He passed a newsagents, and a convenience store, a bakery, knowing that he could demand the entire contents of the till and they'd give it to him, too frightened to resist.

He opened the door of the dingy flat he shared with Sal and her two brats and took the stairs up to the bedroom. Sal was out somewhere and Fenton sat on the unmade bed and pulled the gun from his pocket, gazing at it lovingly. He'd kept one or two other items as well, the ID card and the penknife, the lock picks. Keeping the items made him feel superior to the helpless CI5 man and his excitement ran high. He reached over to the bedside table, opened the drawer and dumped his trophies carelessly in. Then he leaned back against the pillows, wrapped both hands around the weapon and pointed it at the wardrobe. “Bang,” he whispered excitedly.

**********************  
 **Chapter 8**

 

King Leon didn't like Doyle, but he knew to stay on the right side of him. He was, however, resentful of the need to do so, resentful of having to acquiesce to Doyle's demands for information, disliked have to endure CI5's arrogant young agent and his equally arrogant partner visiting him at all hours of the day and night. The biggest names in the London underworld trod warily around King Leon, but Ray Doyle treated him like a naughty schoolboy and King Leon resented, more than anything, that he couldn't do a thing about it.

Bodie parked the Capri outside King Leon's club. It was closed during daylight hours, opening only for the creatures of the night. That didn't deter Bodie in the slightest. He ducked around to the side entrance and used his fist to bash at the door. He kept bashing until the door opened a crack and a hard black face with matching black eyes peered out.

“What you want man?”

“I,” said Bodie with exaggerated patience. “Want to see King Leon.”

“Come back later.”

Bodie flashed his ID and put his right hand suggestively inside his jacket to his holster. “Now.”

The doorman hesitated, but something in this man's manner, violence and angst swimming dangerously close to the surface, warned him against refusing. His handsome face was blank, hard, and slightly pale but the doorman didn't miss the bulge under his jacket and he'd seen men on the edge before. This one was predatory, itching to use that gun, and whatever he wanted, he clearly wasn't going to leave without it. The doorman pitied anyone daft enough to try and stop him, and he liked to think he wasn't daft.

He opened the door and Bodie pushed past him. He knew where to go and took the spiral staircase to the mezzanine office two steps at a time.

King Leon was there, with several men, all tough and intimidating. They didn't faze Bodie who, truth be told, relished the idea of resistance, itching to vent some of this worry and frustration. The doorman came in behind him and gave an apologetic gesture to his boss.

King Leon looked up, saw a man, smooth dark and handsome, pantherish and predatory. Hard and aggressive. “I know you. Mr Doyle's partner. What do you want?”

Bodie gazed back steadily. “Information.”

“Something new then.” The black eyes moved unhurriedly past him, to the empty stairwell. “Where is Mr Doyle?”

Bodie smiled, but without humour. “That's the information I want.”

“You've lost him?” King Leon gave a smirk and shook his head. “You better find him quick. Plenty like to see that one brought down, man.”

“Yes but I only want the one that succeeded.”

King Leon looked up sharply, hopeful. “He is dead?”

“No!” Bodie felt a wrench somewhere inside him at the words and the denial was out before he could stop it. “No. Just missing.” He steadied himself, once more calm and in control. “And Leon, someone knows why and someone knows where.”

King Leon stared at Bodie for a full minute, stroking his thin moustache. “He is trouble that one, but he is frightened of nothing, not even of what he should be. Could be he has bitten off more than he can chew this time?”

Bodie remained silent, face deadpan, but his eyes flashed dangerously. King Leon took his time lighting a slim cigar and studied Bodie thoughtfully as he puffed it alight, weighing up this news.

“I have not heard anything, but I will ask around.”

“Make it fast.” Bodie was disappointed, restless, anxious and a sudden thought struck him. If Leon found Doyle first, he could quite easily get rid of him and conveniently have someone else to blame. Bodie wouldn't put it past him. He narrowed his eyes at the nightclub owner, leaned forward and spoke slowly and deliberately, violence promised and delivered. “And Leon? If I hear a single whisper of you taking advantage of this and doing Doyle in yourself, there won't be a single place on earth you'll escape me.”

King Leon drew on his cigar and didn't answer, his black eyes fathomless.

***************************  
His heart seemed to pulsate very loudly in his ears and Doyle fought against waking, against the dull slamming pain that went with it, wanting to sink back into the soothing darkness. But his treacherous mind had other ideas. _Thud, thud, thud_. Doyle tried to shut it out. But through the dull thudding in his head, questions snapped at him. Who were they? Why attack him? What were they doing? The pain was sickening, nauseating and his stomach heaved. His thoughts were a mass of jumbled images, grey and unfocused and seared with that persistent throbbing. He tried to marshal his treacherous mind - at the same time shying away from consciousness, knowing instinctively that to return to it wasn't going to be pleasant. Vaguely he felt a hand on his forehead, smoothing back his hair, but he was already slipping away, away from that thudding pain, back into the darkness.

************************  
When Sal let herself back into the flat after her morning's bingo she found Dougie Fenton sitting on their bed, staring at the bedside drawer.

“Thought you had a job?” she accused.

Fenton looked up, grey eyes resentful, harassed, as he correctly foresaw another domestic about to erupt. “I did, it's done. I'm back.”

“Did you get paid?”

“Not yet.” He hunched his shoulders against her sharpness, her nagging, her disapproval.

“Good for nothing,” she sneered, her face, once pretty, now hard and spiteful. “George down at the arcade fancies me, he earns decent money. You're always promising and never delivering. He says you're pathetic.”

Fenton stood up violently, his face livid, fed up to the back teeth with George, with her, with everything. “Yeah? Well let him say it to me now. Now that I have this!”

He vaulted over the bed and pulled the drawer open, brandishing Doyle's gun with the air of pulling a toy from a Christmas stocking. “No one had better mess with me now! Or I'll blow their sodding heads off.”

Sal stared at the gun, eyes wide. “Where did you get that?”

“Never you mind.” Fenton angry and feeling invincible stood up and pushed past her, down the stairs and out the door. Away.

He walked back up the street, oblivious to the passer-bys, Sal's scornful words echoing in his ears. He longed to be shot of the lot of them, leave this place and everything in it and start afresh. Go where people took him seriously, where he was a somebody. Fenton kept walking, his anger building with each step he took, the anger replacing reason. A large man in a tan overcoat didn't give an inch as he passed and collided with his shoulder, spinning Fenton back.

No apology issued, the man continued on his way and hate exploded like fireworks in Fenton's brain, filling his head with a red mist. He wasn't a nobody, to be brushed aside as insignificant as a stray dog. He turned and followed the man, eyes dilating with madness, his fingers curled around the butt of the gun in his pocket. The large man in the overcoat was hurrying, brushing past other shoppers and it was soon apparent why. Crossing the street, his single minded journey led him to the bank, moving quickly to get in before they shut for the day.

Fenton followed, hate flowing through his veins. He didn't notice other people walking into or out of the bank; he didn't notice a man with an air of authority, dressed in a suit and dark overcoat just inside the door talking to the manager.

Fenton had eyes solely for the man who had pushed into him, jostled him as though he was a nobody. That man was now at the cashier's window, pulling out a wad of notes, beginning to count them. Fenton walked past the enquiry counter, past the elderly couple who were on their way out and stopped behind his quarry.

He pulled the Walther P38 from his pocket. He held it out in his right hand, pointed directly at the back of the large man, still counting his money. The cashier looked up and saw him, saw the gun. She very satisfactorily raised a hand to her mouth and stepped backwards, horror and fear starkly revealing in her wide eyes. Power surged through Fenton, a roaring in his ears, and it was like being high, this intoxicating heady rush of domination. He smiled. He was still smiling when he pulled the trigger.

The report ripped through the quiet air in the building. The cashier screamed and stumbled backwards, against the desks behind her, knocking a tray of files to the floor. The bullet tore through the tan overcoat, leaving a gaping hold and a spreading crimson stain in its wake. The man, who had arrogantly brushed aside a scruffy no hoper in his haste to get his money into the bank, didn't even know who had shot him.

“Police! Drop the gun!” The shout came from behind him. Fenton took his gaze off the body on the floor, off that satisfying stain spreading across the overcoat and twisted to look over his shoulder. A man stood there, an authoritative figure and he had a gun in his fist, held out, trained on Fenton. “Drop it. Now.”

Fenton was still smiling, still feeling that rush of adrenaline, still feeling ten foot tall. Who was this man who dared to challenge him? He brought Doyle's pistol up, ready to fire again and another shot rent the air. This time a crimson stain spread across Dougie Fenton's chest. He stopped smiling and looked confused. A coldness crept across him. The gun suddenly felt too heavy in his fist. His vision wavered, his legs buckled. Dougie Fenton fell and Doyle's semi auto skidded across the tiles to rest against the wall.

******************************  
Night was falling when Bodie exited his fifth contact with the same agonisingly unhelpful results. His RT was beeping as he got back to the car. He dropped into the drivers seat, picked up the receiver and thumbed the switch. “3.7”

_“Relay from Alpha. Go ahead Alpha._ ”

Cowley's voice came through, sharp and authoritative. “Alpha, any luck?

Bodie's voice, heavy with failure, said. “None, sir.”

“Lab reports are in. Blood at the scene matches 4.5's.”

Bodie didn't answer, he'd already guessed as much.

“6.2 has come up with a list of motorcycle clubs operating Harley Davidsons. He and 5.8 are checking that angle.”

Bodie still didn't answer, inhaling softly, eyes glittering.

“3.7?”

“John Coogan has a grudge against Doyle.”

“John Coogan knows we are watching him very closely.”

“But he could send in the muscle.”

“I agree, he could. But it doesn't make sense why he would. He'd know we'd be onto him.”

Bodie was desperate for answers. “Well somebody somewhere must know something. I mean who knew we were checking a lead on that heroin cut. Something about this isn't adding up.”

“Doyle stirred something up. And someone didn't want him talking about it. I'm looking into Jimmy Croft's demise. It seems too much a co-incidence that his death is around the same time as these overdoses. I'm treating it as suspicious until we know otherwise.”

“What's that got to do with Doyle?”

“That's your job Bodie, get on with it.”

*********************************  
 **Chapter 9**

 

The questions pulled him out of the darkness accompanied by the painful thudding of his heartbeat, vibrating through his head like a jackhammer. Why did they attack, what were they hiding, who were they? Soggy, dirty, excruciating pain erupted the minute he tried to move and Doyle gritted his teeth in agony. Despite his best attempts to stay silent, a small groan escaped him and he hazily sensed a presence, someone was near him. He tried to open his eyes, but it seemed too much effort.

“Are you awake?”

The voice was feminine, and there was something odd about it. Doyle locked onto the voice, anything to avoid the pain, but what was odd about the voice escaped him with the sudden and immediate urge to throw up and he did, the pain escalating with his retching. Fortunately he was lying on his side, he thought vaguely, even more fortunate that his stomach was fairly empty, hardly anything came up. But the jolt to his head caused white spots to dance before his eyes and he was slipping again, back into the pain free darkness. A remote part of his mind, not currently occupied with the blasting throb of the injury, told him it was a dangerous thing to do, especially as he wasn't alone.

So this time he fought it and with tremendous effort forced his eyes open. Nothing, and for a minute he thought he hadn't opened his eyes at all. There was a vague white light, dim and fuzzy and he blinked, trying to clear his vision. _Thud, thud, thud_. He couldn't move at all, couldn't raise his arm to his throbbing head, couldn't move his legs. Had he even tried?

“Can you hear me?” That voice again, with the oddness to it. A woman. Doyle blinked and the fuzzy light came closer, indistinct and blurry.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Doyle squinted. What fingers? She must be daft. The light was growing dimmer and the darkness was creeping up again. His eyes closed heavily. The thudding in his head remained.

****************************  
Bodie arrived at Doyle's current flat and was out of the Capri, moving swiftly to the gate, almost before he pulled the handbrake on. The gate was, of course, locked. A locked gate was no deterrent at all to a man like Bodie. He simply crouched, sprang and hauled himself up and over the wall, powerful muscles making it look as simple as climbing a ladder.

The large glass windows facing the sunny courtyard were a plus for Doyle, who had said it was a good light for painting, even though he never seemed to have time to actually do any. Bodie peered cautiously in the window, cupping his hands around the glass to block the glare, before moving to the door.

Applying his skeleton keys, he gained entrance quickly and switched off the alarms. Bodie was quite at home in Doyle's pad, he spent almost as much time here as Doyle did at his place. He knew where everything was, and he'd know if something wasn't right.

He looked around the bedroom, as familiar to him as his own. Nothing looked out of place, the bed was made, last night's clothes tossed into a corner, a book on the bedside table. He sniffed cautiously and thought he detected a faint perfume, stronger around the pillows on the bed. So there had been a girl. Either that or Doyle had suddenly developed a liking for Chanel. But nothing else seemed different than it should be.

He looked under the bed, the wardrobe, checked the bathroom and wandered back to the lounge. It was neat and tidy, probably a bit too tidy for Doyle, another indication there had been a woman stay the night.

The kitchen showed breakfast dishes stacked neatly in the draining rack. The phone lay on the bench, a notepad next to it. It was blank. No phone numbers, no messages. He held it to the light, but there was no forced impression in the clean page, nothing resembling Doyle's untidy scrawl that could have left its mark from the torn off top sheet. Bodie walked out again and stared at the bedroom door.

How many times had Doyle stumbled out of there, dishevelled, rubbing his eyes, curls tousled, scowling at the early wake up call. How many times had he stumbled in, to fall fully clothed on the bed, slightly the worse for wear after a night out, while Bodie crashed on the settee. Bodie sighed softly, willing it to happen again, and took another final look around. Nothing. Nothing to explain why his partner had disappeared off the face of the earth. Nothing of the woman who had spent the night, apart from her lingering fragrance. Who the hell was she?

***************************  
George Cowley sat at his desk and despite the late hour, pulled another list towards him, to scan the names printed in columns, along with dates and locations. Some were familiar to him, others were not, but all were prisoners who'd been released in the last six months from Her Majesty's prison system. All were felons that Doyle had had a hand in putting away. None seemed to be the type to hunt him down but that didn't mean anything. If there was one thing Cowley had learned about people in this job, was that they didn't always do the expected.

He pulled off his glasses and leaned back, his shrewd mind thinking and analysing. He was faced with a distinct lack of leads in Doyle's disappearance and it bothered him. He might expound to his agents quite frequently that they were expendable, and indeed they were, but he didn't have to like it. And to have one go missing while not even on duty stuck in his craw.

Nothing hurt more than an agent who didn't come home. George Cowley knew that all right. Stay alive, he'd tell them and he meant it. But they were hard men, doing a hard job and they sometimes failed.

Bodie and Doyle. An unlikely team, but one of his best. He'd gone with his gut instinct when pairing them, against all opposition, including the lads themselves with their obvious differences and initial dislike of each other, and he was smugly pleased at being proven right. Doyle and Bodie. Chalk and cheese, nitro and glycerine, and a lethal combination in anyone's language.

Yet it was inevitable that the pairing would one day dissolve, be rent apart, and he didn't want to think which one would cope better without the other. He especially didn't want to think that that day might have finally come.

Being a CI5 agent naturally meant being a target, but Doyle was one of his most experienced men. And Bodie, hot on his trail, should have turned up something by now. But nothing, no ransom note from the kidnappers, no contact from Doyle himself…. no body.

Cowley's eyes fell on the map. Doyle had gone missing up north. The bad heroin cut was up north. Somehow the two must be related, but what had Doyle found out? Found but hadn't told his partner. Doyle was feisty enough to think he could handle anything on his own. And most of the time he could. Providing of course that he knew what he was handling. But this time he hadn't and Cowley hadn't yet discounted that Doyle may have been unaware that he was a target.

He frowned at the map, thinking about that. Doyle had a sixth sense when it came to trouble, Cowley doubted very much that he would have been unaware of being followed, he had sensed tails often enough in the past. And Bodie was attuned enough to Doyle to know if something was bothering him. So, if he wasn't followed, he was surprised at the pub.

And if that were the case, how did they know that his lads would stop there?

**************************  
Canavagh stared at Gagen and his black eyes glittered dangerously, face hardening, lips thinning with the cruelty he was capable of. “CI5?” Gagen nodded, eyes warily on his boss, well aware of the man's ruthlessness, despite his outward mild appearance. “Jesus.” Canavagh glanced furtively around, the gardener was tending the beds near the door and his housekeeper was polishing the hall table. He gestured curtly to Gagen and led the way out onto the front lawns, away from possible eavesdropping. “Has he come round?”

”Not before we left,” Gagen said. “You said you wanted to question him, so we left him alone.”

Canavagh glanced at his watch. It was too late to go up there now, and, if the lad was still out of it, pointless as well. “Nothing must interfere with this deal. I've worked too hard for it. If he identifies Moloney….if CI5 get on to them…..” He trailed off as he considered the implications of that. “It can't happen Mick. We'll have to get rid of him, dump his body miles away from here, throw them off.”

“What if he hasn't come round to question?”

”We'll make him. He's definitely secure for tonight? We can't risk him getting free and identifying Moloney”

Gagen nodded curtly. “Cuffed and tied and locked in. Plus that head wound looks serious, he wouldn't get far on his own, even if he did get out.”

Canavagh glanced around, but he was confident he was safe. Nothing incriminating was kept at the house, he'd made sure of it. And very few people knew about the ruined cottages on his land. “Come back first thing in the morning and we'll get on with it then. His organisation can't have known what he was doing, or they'd be on the doorstep, but I want to make sure. Then you can get rid of him.”

“Strange he was alone.” Gagen finally gave voice to his uneasiness. “They usually work in pairs don't they? CI5?”

Canavagh frowned uncertainly. “Lucky for us he was.”

Gagen nodded, moving away.

“Oh one more thing.” Canavagh waited until the other man stopped and looked back at him. “Make sure your boys keep their mouths shut. The last thing I need is CI5 sniffing around here, around me. And they will be looking for him.”

Gagen turned and walked back to his car. He'd feel better once the agent was dead and gone and all traces of him removed. Tiny and Steele could be relied upon to keep quiet. He thought fleetingly of Fenton, but Fenton surely wouldn't blab. It'd be more than his life was worth.

***************************  
 **Chapter 10**

 

_Fractured skull, smashed cheekbone, his eye socket's crushed. What a mess! Get a theatre ready and someone page Dr Bingham, he's going to need reconstructive surgery. How did this happen?_

Not again!

Doyle shifted restlessly, the pain in his head thumping cruelly. Voices without faces.

_He'll need dental work as well, a right nasty piece of work. More suction here. He's damned lucky, I think we can save the eye. What happened to him?_

Long periods of darkness, of voices fading in and out.

_Can you hear me? Come on, come back to us now, lad._

Not again! The right side of his face throbbed. Doyle struggled, resisting, recoiling from the pain, the voices, the bleeps and blips of the machines surrounding him.

_Finally! You had us worried, you've been unconscious nearly a week._

_I can't see!_

_Just some swelling, it's affected your vision, you're lucky you didn't lose your eyesight permanently. Don't worry though; Dr Bingham managed to save your good looks. What happened to you?_

What happened?

His eyes snapped open.

He groaned softly. A flashback, that was all - a flashback to that night so long ago. The night that left its mark on his right cheekbone. But he still couldn't see.

Blurry indistinct shapes. He closed his eyes again, not wanting to revisit that memory, not wanting to repeat it. He looked for the soothing darkness but another voice was there, overriding the voices in his memory.

“Wake up. Wake up.” The voice was insistent, hammering and Doyle tried to oblige, even knowing as he did that the pain would come with it. He forced his eyes open again but his vision was still dark, still fuzzy, the voice disembodied, floating about beyond his reach.

He lay utterly still, forcing himself to breath slowly and evenly and tried to take in his surroundings. The thudding didn't seem quite as nauseating as before, although he still couldn't move. Cold stone pressed against his right cheek and shoulder. The air was damp, icy and his skin felt frozen, a fine shiver started somewhere low in his belly and fanned upwards, outwards, and he clenched his teeth to stop them chattering. He could smell the coppery tang of blood and the fainter smell of vomit and he recalled being sick. He could hear nothing but the sound of his own breathing and a restless scratching somewhere behind him.

The pain in his head was still the worst but now he could feel a slight burning in his neck and shoulders. His limbs were numb. He experimented, tried to move his arms, his legs. Nothing, and it finally dawned on him that he was restrained and a surge of panic gripped him.

“Can you hear me, are you awake?” That voice again, with the oddness he now recognised as an accent. But his muddled mind couldn't name it. His lost vision disturbed him immensely.

“I can't see.”

He hadn't meant to say it aloud. He had no idea who she was, where he was, who else was there. Was she part of whoever they were? The ones at the pub, the ones that obviously had tied him and dumped him here. Who were they?

Their faces were shadowy, indistinct as though he had seen them from a great distance. He searched his skittering thoughts, tried to bring their faces into focus but they eluded him, mockingly wraithlike in his memory and he gave it away for the moment. Instead he focused on listening, as best as he could through the hammering still echoing in his skull. He couldn't hear anyone else, so it seemed that she was alone.

His voice had come out croaky and he tried to clear it but that sent another jolt through his head. He heard shuffling and the light came again, a fuzzy white outline with a dark indistinct shape behind it. Doyle blinked furiously, and angled his eyes upwards, trying not to move his head. The shadowy light loomed closer, shone right in his face, and Doyle squinted at it, recoiling from the glare against his dilated pupils.

“I think you have a head injury. It must be affecting your vision.”

_She thinks?_ Doyle thought sarcastically, quite aware that he had a head injury. It was pounding through his bloody skull.

“Are you the police?”

He tried to think, his brain felt as scrambled as eggs. The light moved away, played over his head, and he wanted nothing more than to sink back into blessed unconsciousness.

“Are you?”

God, Doyle thought, nag nag nag. But he heard the fear in the voice, behind that demanding tone, and gradually realised that she was, and had every reason to be, quite frightened. In fact it was astonishing that she hadn't scarpered and left him to his fate, and then he belatedly realised that she still could. He made an enormous effort to reassure her.

“Not quite, I'm CI5.”

“What's that? Some sort of British secret service?”

Her accent still hadn't come to him. Not English, not American. But the sceptical tone came through loud and clear and he bristled automatically against it. “Something like that.” The pain was growing again and desperately he said: “You have to help me.”

“Help you? You're joking! They're coming back to kill you. They said so.”

“Who said?”

“How should I know? The men, the ones that brought you here.”

He tried to look around, blinking in an effort to clear the fuzziness, but couldn't see anything. It felt like a cave of some sort.

“Where are we?”

“In an old ruined house, in the cellars. There's a gate and they've locked it.”

Doyle tried to lick his lips. He was thirsty. “Why are you here then?”

“I was just sheltering from the storm. I heard them.”

“You mean they don't know you're here.” Doyle felt hope rise in him.

“No.”

“Then how did you get in?”

“A small opening, at the back, a sort of cave in, it looks fairly recent, I don't think they know it's there. I didn't, till I heard the voices.”

“What else is in here?” Doyle could hear his words echoing, indicating the room was large and fairly empty.

“Wooden crates, most of them padlocked shut, I can't see in them”

Doyle took a breath, a cache of goods by the sound of it. Maybe weapons, maybe drugs. “Untie me.”

He felt her hesitate. “I'm not sure I should….”

“I have some ID, in my jacket pocket, proof if you want it.”

“You mean you really are some sort of British secret service?”

Impatience flared and he gritted his teeth. Of course she wouldn't know, if she weren't British. “I'm telling the truth, I work for the Government, a step up from the Police. Check my ID.”

He felt her warily move over, the fuzzy light jerking erratically over his body. Hands began exploring, moving in and out of his clothing in a way that would have had Doyle very interested, had the situation been anything other than it was. He felt her pause on discovering his shoulder holster, her questing fingers touching it lightly, before moving on.

“There's nothing, one of them searched you. Before, while you were out to it.”

Doyle tried not to swear. His gun, his RT, he couldn't feel either, but he gave it a shot anyway. “Can you see my gun anywhere? On the floor or somewhere else?”

“No.” Her voice rose slightly, uncertainty lacing it. “They took it all with them.”

“Then they know I'm CI5?”

“Yeah, they didn't like it.” She sounded worried and Doyle shifted slightly, stifling a groan as everything protested.

“Which means they're up to no good. You heard them talking?”

“Most of it,” she admitted. “Something about an IRA deal and what to do with you.”

Doyle licked his lips again and strived for patience. “Untie me. I won't hurt you. If they are doing a deal with the IRA it'll mean innocent people being killed. Do you want that? We have to stop them. You have to help me get out of here, get to a phone, warn the authorities.”

She was silent for a moment and Doyle thought he'd lost her. He gritted his teeth and tried to lift his head. His cheek came away from the floor under protest and he realised that the coppery tang of blood he could smell was his, and it had dried under his face. He felt the girl get up, heard her footsteps echoing away and truly alarmed he moved too fast. Pain shot through his skull like a canon ball blast and nearly sent him down again. He lay still, on his right side breathing evenly, willing himself to stay conscious and sighed, giddy with relief when he heard her returning.

She was at his legs, sawing at the ropes and he opened his eyes again trying to see. The tightness in his ankles and knees eased and he yelped softly as the feeling came back with a rush of pins and needles. She pulled the ropes away and rubbed his legs, hurrying the blood flow. Doyle shifted gratefully and then she was at his back, pulling at his wrists.

“These are handcuffs.”

“The keys are in the pocket of my jeans.”

“Which pocket?”

“The front one.”

He felt her hand slide into the pocket of his tight jeans and her fingers search, coming up empty. She checked the other pockets, rolling his hips gently to access them. “Nothing.” She reported, “They're empty.”

Great, just great. His own cuffs. He could just imagine Bodie's reaction. His partner had warned him that this would happen one day. This wasn't good, not at all. Doyle jerked at his wrists in frustration and worry. What a mess! He tried to formulate some sort of rational plan through the jackhammer in his brain. One thing he was sure of. He wasn't going to stay here waiting for a bullet. “Help me up.”

He felt her kneel beside him, her hands on his shoulders and with surprising strength managed to pull him upright. He clenched his jaw, tense as a spring, and although he tried to anticipate what the movement would do to his head it still felt like he'd been hit by a bus. His vision went quite black and his harsh breathing sounded far away, as though it belonged to someone else. He was aware of her hands remaining on his shoulders and he was glad for the support.

“You should be in hospital.”

Nothing he'd like better.

“What now?”

Doyle didn't answer. The pain in his head was building to immense proportions and he could feel the blood draining with each thud of his heart. He felt cold and clammy.

“Can you stand?”

Her voice sounded distant, echoing and a dark lassitude swept over him.

_Not likely_ was his last coherent thought before he slumped sideways and the girl gently lowered him back down.

She looked at him for a while by torchlight, noticing the fresh blood flow. He was half on his back, his bound hands keeping him at a slight angle. The girl placed her fingers to his neck, relieved to feel the pulse, reassuringly strong, if a bit on the fast side and then shone her torch over his face.

The half that wasn't caked in blood was extremely pleasant to look at, finely drawn brows, full lips that looked on the verge of smiling, echoed in his eyes which were wide spaced and black lashed. His hair, dark curls spiralling nearly to his shoulders gave him a young impish look.

He was dressed very casually, in faded, indecently tight jeans and a leather jacket, the clip buttons of his pale yellow shirt enticingly undone to the third rib, revealing firm skin and a silver neck chain. The collar and right side of his neck was encrusted with dark blood.

She angled the torch to the right side of his face and then turned his head, revealing the gash, gaping red behind his ear. He needed a hospital. Stitches, drugs, doctors, X-Rays and whatever else they did for concussion and blood loss. The men that had brought him had said he was CI5, more than an ordinary copper, and they definitely hadn't been happy about it. She wasn't sure if he was who he said he was, but if he was telling the truth, he needed to be gone from this place by the morning or they said they'd kill him. It didn't seem real. Like something from a TV show. But he'd believed it. What sort of cop was he?

Standing up, she tucked the torch into the waistband of her jeans and then squatting down near his head, hooked her hands under his arms. She began to drag him backwards, towards the small hole caused by the damaged wall. He was heavy for one so slimly built and she took a breath and heaved again managing quite a distance. He groaned and half opened his eyes, but she knew he wasn't aware of her. She stopped for a minute to regard the small opening, caused by the wall slowly disintegrating and was startled when he spoke. She spun around, pulling her torch out and flicking it on, but his eyes were closed, skin pale, head still bleeding. Still out to it. She wondered briefly if she was hearing things. She thought he'd said Bodie. What the hell was a Bodie?

***************************  
 **Chapter 11**

 

Bodie woke with a start, conflicting visions parading though his sleep addled brain - of Doyle being dumped into the boot of the car, intermingled with them crossing the lane to the pub, laughing. And blood, Doyle's blood, bright red over the cobblestones, by the Ford Granada that had been parked in the lane.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling his skin rasp with new beard, unsettled by the abrupt awakening. The RT was beeping. He'd dropped off, unintentionally, while sitting in the Capri outside King Leon's club.

Glancing at his watch, he snatched the RT up, the dream still dominating his conscious thoughts when it suddenly hit him. What wasn't adding up? The car! The car that Doyle had been so carelessly tossed into. It had already been there, parked in the lane when they arrived. And they'd arrived on a whim, unexpectedly because he'd fancied a drink and Doyle had indulged him. They hadn't been followed; the men were already there.

“ _3.7?_ ”

Cowley's voice.

Bodie flicked the switch. “Sir, we weren't followed. The car was already there. There was something else going on. Doyle must have walked blind into it.”

“Aye, I've stepped up the hunt for the motorbike owner. But we have something more now. Get yourself back to base 3.7; you're going north again. North north.”

*********************  
George Cowley looked up as one half of his top team arrived, dishevelled, unaccustomedly dark around the jaw and looking both tired and hopeful at the same time. He eyed his young agent with disfavour. “You need a shave 3.7.”

Bodie ignored that remark. At three in the morning he didn't give a damn what he looked like. “What's happening?”

“A shooting. A botched bank raid, late yesterday afternoon in Derbyshire. The robber shot a customer in the back and then took a bullet himself. MI5 had a man up there, checking a report of some money laundering in the area and he happened to be in the bank.”

Bodie looked incredulous, angry. “You want to put me on a case? Now? While Doyle is still missing?”

Cowley peered up at him over his glasses. “MI5 ran the gun through ballistics, did a rush job thinking it was related to their investigation.”

Bodie stared at him.

“The weapon used in the robbery was a Walther P38, CI5 issue. The rounds match the gun signed out by 4.5.”

Bodie's face remained expressionless but his eyes turned hard and frosty. “Is he alive?”

“He's in the hospital. Under MI5 guard.”

Bodie was already heading to the door.

“Bodie!”

He stopped, turned, impatiently gazed at his chief.

“We need to know why they snatched Doyle. What did he find out? There is something shady going on up there, I can feel it, and I want to know what it is.”

“Doyle comes first.”

It wasn't a request and Cowley knew it. “Report in as soon as you find out anything. And that's an order. I don't need you missing as well.”

************************  
Doyle gradually became aware of being manhandled, dragged most painfully by his upper arms, which protested with fiery stabs through his abused muscles. His handcuffed wrists were stinging with the tightening shackles and his head throbbed. A new pain was making itself felt, a burning sensation down his neck and across his right shoulder. Doyle was no stranger to pain and injury, any CI5 agent could attest to that, but it certainly didn't make his situation any easier.

“Stop,” he croaked and immediately he was lowered back down.

“Back with me again?” The girl, the one with the accent. Doyle tried to take in his surroundings. It was still dark, and the small fuzzy white light of the pencil torch suddenly appeared and played over his face. Doyle squinted against it, and his distorted vision stretched his patience. “What's happening?”

“We can't stay here. They said they were coming back in the morning and it's nearly morning.”

He heard her fumbling about and then the torch was placed on the ground. She leaned over him, placing an arm under his shoulders, lifting him slightly and he heard the gurgle of liquid, the mouth of a container pressed to his lips.

“It's water, drink a bit.”

He did, thirsty, water flowing in equal measures down his throat and clothing. He tilted his head back, indicating he'd had enough and she lowered him back down.

“They definitely said they were coming back to kill me?”

“Yeah. But they… I mean they can't be serious can they? This sort of thing isn't real… They wouldn't really kill you.” The fear was still there in her voice, mixed with disbelief.

“Looks like it.” Doyle jerked his wrists for emphasis. “I mean they haven't exactly invited me to dinner have they?” He leaned against her arm, trying to adjust his body to ease the strain on his wrists. “Why wait though, why not finish me back then?”

The girl sat back and her voice was shaky. “They said someone called Canavagh wanted to question you first.”

Doyle absorbed that, searching his memory, unsuccessfully, for a Canavagh. Who was Canavagh and how had he known he was at the pub? And question him about what? He cast his mind back to what he'd seen before he'd been attacked, but the memory wouldn't come, the faces were blurred. He vaguely remembered the motorbike, elusive images of a fight, but the rest was a blank.

Whatever it was though, it was important enough for them to risk bringing him here. Clearly he'd interrupted a deal, one involving weapons, if the locked crates contained armoury - and Doyle was reasonably sure they did, he and Bodie having investigated a number of cases involving weapons deals and smuggling. If it was the IRA, it was big, although he wasn't aware of any IRA cells anywhere in this area. He briefly wondered if it had anything to do with the heroin. He couldn't think clearly, couldn't collaborate his thoughts. And if he didn't get himself out of here, he'd never find out.

He returned his attention to the girl, trying to keep calm in order to keep her in the same state. Like it or not, he needed her. “How do we get out?”

“Over there in that far corner. This whole house is falling to bits. The wall there has gone and it's on a slight hill to the creek, so it's not so far underground. That's how I got in.”

She scrabbled around and he could hear canvas being zipped. “I've got some aspirin and a couple of band aids, but your head needs stitching.”

“What time is it?” Doyle carefully tilted his head and thought he saw light to his left.

“About five thirty, you've been out most of the night.”

“Help me up.”

“You reckon? Look what happened last time.”

Doyle hissed through his teeth, tried to keep his patience. “Help me up,” he repeated more forcibly.

She inhaled strongly as though wanting to argue but obediently moved to him. Again she grasped his shoulders and hauled him to a sitting position. Doyle closed his eyes against the thudding in his head and clamped his jaw shut as he came upright. The copper tang of blood was still there, strong as ever, but he could also smell a subtle perfume, the girl. She was close enough that he could feel the warmth of her against his cold skin. The dizziness threatened again, but by breathing evenly and slowly, Doyle fought it and this time he stayed conscious.

“You've got concussion.”

Doyle breathed in and opened his eyes. She was a fuzzy outline, the growing light showing a mass of gold red hair, but little else. “Probably.”

“You need a hospital.”

She had a definite knack for stating the obvious. He ignored her jittery remarks. “Is there anything that can get these cuffs off? Any sort of tools, even a bit of wire?”

“No, they took all that too, they said you'd be able to get loose if any of that was left there.”

Doyle badly wanted to swear. But he dare not frighten this girl any more than she was, not if he was going to get out of here alive. “Help me to stand.”

She moved around, wove her arm through his and grasped him firmly about the waist. Her strength again surprised him and he wished his vision were clearer so he could see her properly. He came slowly upright allowing her to take most of the load but when he settled his weight evenly on his feet, his left ankle screamed in protest and he nearly went over again. He lifted the offending limb and stood awkwardly on his right foot, leaning heavily against the girl, unwilling to believe what he was feeling, what he knew to be true.

How the hell had that happened? A vague impression, of glancing down at his foot, awkwardly placed on loose cobblestones.

Of all the sodding…! He swore viciously, blatantly disregarding his previous decision to not frighten the girl. He could have wept in frustration and anger. She still had tight hold of him, but he felt her draw slightly away. “What is it?”

“My ankle, it's sprained or something.” Doyle bit his lip, tried to control his temper as Cowley had taught him. Tried to use it, but it swirled across his fuzzy vision like a mocking red mist, leaving him trembling, both in mind and body. The room was growing lighter. They'd be back and he was helpless. Immobile. As effectively as if he were still bound hand and foot. He'd give his next month's pay to see Bodie appear about now.

Where the hell was Bodie anyway? For the first time he realised that he had no idea what had happened to his partner. Bodie had been in the pub when he'd been attacked; he remembered that clear enough. Had he also been attacked? Maybe injured himself? Doyle felt a faint unease at the suggestion and deliberately turned away from the even darker thought of Bodie being killed outright. Or had he remained in the pub with that girl, that barmaid?

Could he have no notion of what had occurred? Doyle hoped to God not, otherwise he was really up a creek without a paddle. But if he were able to, Bodie would be looking for him now, Doyle knew that much. He just had to stay one step ahead until Bodie found him. Easier said than done with a head fit to burst, fuzzy vision, cuffed wrists and now an ankle he couldn't stand on.

He experimented, lowering his weight gently, testing it. The pain was acute but if he had to he could probably hobble. But for how long? He carefully tilted his eyes down to the girl. She stood, braced against his weight, waiting and he sensed her bewilderment, her nervousness and disbelief in the unimaginable situation she had suddenly and unwittingly found herself in. “You may have to go for help, how far away is a phone?”

Surprised she looked up at him, at this young good-looking man, with the impatient street-smart voice, who was nevertheless, possibly the toughest man she'd ever met. He was pale and shaking slightly, the blood dripping steadily from his wound, but he was taking charge, ruthlessly authoritative with his questions, throwing orders around, expecting them to be obeyed.

“A phone?” she repeated incredulously. “Don't you know where you are? Nearest phone is miles away, we're in the middle of the moors.”

“Christ.” Doyle remembered, just in time, not to swing his head around to her. “Moors? Jesus… Moors?” Then a thought struck him and turned to look at her, more slowly. “What the hell are you doing in the middle of the moors by yourself, young girl like you?”

She made an impatient noise in the back of her throat, as though she'd heard that before now. “You wouldn't believe it.”

“Try me.”

She glanced up at his tone, harsher now, patience ended, if he'd ever had any in the first place.

She exhaled crossly and he heard a hint of defiance in her voice. “Looking for a Roman road.”

He thought he hadn't heard correctly, her accent throwing him. “You what?”

“You know, you wouldn't believe how many of you Brits say exactly that, in exactly that way.”

She sounded testy and Doyle smiled suddenly. It was like the sun coming out and the girl looked suspiciously at him, his abrupt switch from ruthless hard case, to boyish charm catching her off guard.

Incredulous laughter laced his voice. “A Roman road?”

The suspicion remained. “Yeah, something quite mundane to you I bet, but it's not something I see every day.”

The accent, it finally came to him, but then he hadn't met that many Australians and it certainly explained what she was doing on the moors. He gave another snort of laughter, imagining the faces of the men who'd dumped him here. He bet they never thought he'd be released by a young woman wandering around the moors looking for a Roman road either. It was just too unbelievable. “By yourself?” he prodded dubiously, and felt her bristle immediately.

“Why not by myself? I came here by myself, and that's much further than an easy day's bushwalking.” She manoeuvred herself next to him again. “And I'm not that young. And I'm not staying here in a blue fit. Lean on me and use your good foot.”

Doyle carefully turned his head and squinted at her, trying to make out her features under all that red gold hair. “Where are you planning on us going then, if we're stuck out in the middle of the moors?”

“God. Anywhere. Away from here.” Fear made her sharp, when he didn't move. “Well do you want to stay here or not? Because I'm not bloody hanging around for them to get back.”

Doyle gave a soft snort and did as he was told. It was awkward, his cuffed wrists a hindrance, but he gritted his teeth against the dual pain of ankle and head and with the girl's help managed to hobble to the partially collapsed wall, to lean gratefully against it, and shift his weight to his right leg. The girl bent down and checked outside.

“It's clear, come on, get down so I can pull you through.”

Doyle obediently bent down and she took hold of his arms, half dragging him through the small space. It was lighter outside and he looked carefully around. It was like viewing the world underwater, everything shimmering and fuzzy. She clambered out after him and again wove her arm through his, supporting his left side.

“What can you see?” he asked her. “It's all blurry.”

She glanced up at him. He was taller than her but at a good height for her to take his weight which was fortunate considering how little he could manoeuvre on his own. “There is a slope that leads to a creek, there are lots of trees down there, we'll be out of sight, everywhere else is open ground. There is only one road and it's visible for miles, when they come back, they'll see us, if we use it.”

A cold wind was blowing and Doyle felt it right through his clothing and across the wetness on his neck. He shivered, scrunching his shoulders up against it, conscious of his undone shirt and jacket, chest exposed uncomfortably to the chill air. The girl was warm at his side and she took most of his weight, bearing up well as he tested his left foot, but it was still agonisingly slow going as they began to make their way across the damp grass towards the stream. The pain in his head was escalating with every hobble and Doyle feared for a minute he wasn't going to make it.

The girl was breathing hard with the effort, both arms locked around his waist and Doyle, conscious of his weight, his shot-to-hell co-ordination, forced his injured ankle to take more of the strain than it wanted to. They were perhaps eight feet from the tree line when it finally gave away altogether and they both went over in a heap. Fortunately the grass was still rather thick and spongy and cushioned most of his fall but he still saw stars and his head pounded. He forced himself to lie motionless, battling the bright lights across his vision, the sounds of the girl fading in and out as she scrambled towards him, turning him over. The dizziness soared and still he didn't move, fighting it.

“Hey, you still with me?”

Her voice sounded small, muffled, and the roaring in his ears got louder and louder. His eyes stayed closed.

She gazed down at him worriedly, automatically checking his pulse. His face was pale; his lips had a bluish tint, his skin cold. He didn't move. The wind blew, icy, lifting the curls that weren't stiff with dried blood, ruffling his ruined shirt, producing goosebumps across his chest. It brought with it, an unwelcome sound and her head snapped up, terror stark on her face. The low rumble of an approaching car.

*******************************  
 **Chapter 12**.

 

The hospital was quiet in the early hours of the morning. Bodie slammed out of the Capri, looking quite disreputable in crinkled clothes and dark stubble, his energy belying his appearance. He strode in through the emergency doors and to the reception desk, pulling his ID as he did so and presenting it with a flourish to the nurse on duty. “Bodie, CI5.”

The nurse glanced at the man in surprise and at the ID he flashed under her nose. It was all happening tonight. Normally the graveyard shift was as boring as watching grass grow. But the gunshot victim had brought a steady stream of law enforcement officers in and out of the ward, and now this one to add to the collection - an agent handsome as sin, his lean face hard and expectant.

“Second floor, ward eight,” she said, but was disappointed when he barely acknowledged her, instead whirling away and striding towards the lift.

Fenton lay in the bed, connected to all sorts of medical paraphernalia, machines beeping, tubes draining and dripping, and Bodie was strongly and uncomfortably reminded of Doyle in the same position, not that long ago, the same machines keeping him alive after surgery to remove two bullets from his chest.

It was a memory he pushed hurriedly aside, not wanting to recall his critically injured partner fighting for his life - white and still, breathing artificially through a ventilator while death prowled the shadows around his bed. Nor did he want to bring to mind how helpless he had felt, and how close he had come to losing his partner forever.

And it was certainly a memory he didn't want repeated, so he was harsh in his manner, his slow burning fuse close to exploding.

The MI5 man had come in with him but Bodie ignored him, instead casting his hard gaze to the attending nurse. “Can he hear me, can he speak?”

She looked shocked. “Of course not, he's dangerously ill.”

Bodie leaned over the bed, close to Fenton's ear and snarled, “Where is he?”

The nurse protested, stepping forward in consternation. The MI5 man went to take his arm but Bodie shook him off, his attention fully on the man in the bed. “Where is he, you bastard?”

No response, the thin chest rose and fell in time to the machine and Dougie Fenton remained oblivious to Bodie's vehemence.

Bodie looked up at the nurse again. “How long till he wakes up?”

She was nervous of this hard, furious man, but tried not to show it, drawing on her professionalism. “He is unlikely to ever wake up. He doesn't have a good prognosis I'm afraid. Too much damage.”

Bodie looked at Fenton with contempt. Doyle had fought it, Doyle had come back. And his partner was damn well going to come back this time too.

“You have to make him wake up.”

She gaped at him and Bodie inhaled strongly, looked around in utter frustration. All these dead ends, they grated on his nerves like steel wire.

His gaze locked on the MI5 man. “What did he have on him? Who is he?”

The agent shrugged. “Don't know yet. No ID, doesn't seem to be known to the local boys. We're running prints through the records now.”

That could take hours. Bodie thumped the bed, uncaring of the tubes, the machines and the shocked face of the nurse. He glared at the door, jaw clenching then spun back again, leaned in.

“WHERE IS HE?” he bellowed.

“Sir, I really must protest,” the nurse said sharply. “What can this man possibly tell you that is so important?”

Bodie's head shot up, and he rounded savagely on her, an unwitting outlet for his frustration. “What's so important?”

He rubbed a hand over his night's growth, looking haunted. “How about where my partner is? Before his mates put a couple of bullets in him and he ends up like this.” And he indicated the bed with a savage gesture. “Or worse, a six foot hole.”

He leaned across the bed and looked her right in the eyes. Hard, lethal and menacing, as only Bodie could be. “ _That's_ what's so important.”

The nurse's mouth dropped open in horror.

“It's no use,” the MI5 agent spoke up, in some sympathy now that he knew the reason behind the CI5 man's belligerence. “He's been like this since they brought him in. Not a flicker. The surgeon says he's comatose and expected to die.”

Recoiling, Bodie glared at them both. “They have my partner and HE knows where! Get on to your doctors and you tell them to find a way to wake him.”

He left the room to search out a phone, stalking down the corridors like a whirlwind, seething at the injustice of the world. Time was running out for Doyle. How long would they keep him alive? If he was still alive that is. Bodie's face set, pure stubbornness refusing to consider any other possibility.

Eventually finding a payphone on the ground floor by the front doors, he lifted the receiver and dug into the pockets of his jeans, looking for coins. Base patched him through to Cowley's office and the phone was picked up on the first ring. Bodie briefly wondered whether his boss had had any sleep at all.

“He's in a coma, not expected to live,” Bodie reported, the sheer uselessness of the journey coming across in his voice. “MI5's doing prints.”

“He's Douglas Fenton,” Cowley stated briskly. “He's done time.”

Bodie was surprised. “That was quick.”

“I already had the name. He's on this list of arrests from Doyle's past, so we checked the prints against them first. Released six months ago and relocated up there. He must have recognised Doyle at the pub. It explains a lot.”

“But not why they snatched him or where he is,” Bodie growled. His eyes fell on a poster tacked to the wall above the phone. It said: Give Blood Today. He glared at it balefully. Yeah, well not if he could help it, but Doyle might, if something didn't sodding go their way for a change. “Is there a current address?”

Cowley seemed distracted. “Yes, I'll get it for you, though I'm not sure how up to date it is. Odd thing though.”

“What?” Bodie was impatient, wanting to get on with it.

“That motor cycle. None of the clubs had outings in that area on that day. It was a Friday, most people are working. Clubs are more likely to plan their outings on a weekend. You said he was a lone rider? No excess carrier bags, not set up for any sort of distance?”

“Just him and the bike.”

“Then it's likely he lived in the area. I'll get you a list of motor cycle owners in that area.”

Bodie fidgeted. All this dithering could have dire repercussions for Doyle. “The address, sir?”

****************  
The approaching car moved closer, the engine rumbling louder as it travelled the overgrown road leading to the ruined house.

Self preservation had the girl turning intending to flee into the woods surrounding the stream, when her eyes fell on the motionless man, still on the ground. She hesitated, torn. If she left him, he might be killed. But he was so badly hurt, if she tried to help him; they'd both get caught. She wasn't even sure he was who he said he was. He could be one of them, no matter how good looking he was.

He certainly had a hardness to him that was quite unnerving, but that hardness had been briefly counterbalanced by that incredibly appealing smile he had thrown in her direction earlier, transforming his face completely. He was so open, his face as easy to read as a book, his expressive eyes reflecting his every thought. There was just something about him that rang true, made her want to trust him. And besides all that, they had put him down as some sort of law enforcement man.

She hopped indecisively from foot to foot, until the sound of the car turning in the gate had her reacting before she was fully aware of her decision.

Cursing herself for a fool she again bent to him, grasped him under the arms and hauled him into the surrounding bushes, looking desperately for somewhere to hide him. Maybe near the rocks under those trees. His weight was leaden, his head lolling, the gash bleeding yet again, opened no doubt by their ignominious tumble to the ground. Her shoulders burned with the effort of manoeuvring him.

Taking a deep breath, she hauled again, and abruptly the ground gave way beneath her foot. Startled, she dropped the man and turned. Her leg was covered almost to the knee in wet soggy foliage and she hurriedly jerked it back up onto solid ground. Some sort of hollow and it had filled with the leaves, piling up against a moss covered granite boulder. How big was it? She stepped cautiously down into the depression and shuffled with her feet to test the size. About one and half metres long and it squelched unpleasantly under her shoes.

The sound of the engine stopping, doors slamming had her spinning in alarm. When they discovered the empty cellar, what would they do? Would they go away or would they look for him. Panicking, she gazed at the object of their murderous intent, at his ashen bloodied face, his bound hands, his hard lithe body. She knew what they'd do. Dropping to her knees, she began to scoop the wet matted leaves from the hollow.

*********************  
 **Chapter 13**

Canavagh stared at the empty cellar and his face registered both fury and disbelief. “How the hell did he get out?”

Gagen kicked the discarded ropes near the dried bloodstain. “He couldn't have. Not on his own. No way, not the way we tied him. Someone helped him.”

“Then how did they get in?” Canavagh looked around and saw scuff marks in the dust on the floor. The marks of a man being dragged. Footprints. He followed them to see a faint light in the unstable far wall. He walked over and bent down. The opening was small, almost too small for an adult, but the man had been slimly built. He may have got through.

“Here.” He thought he could see something in the other room, a dark shape. He bent down and pushed his head and shoulders through the opening. A rucksack sat against the wall. There was a grinding noise and another shower of stones and he hurriedly pulled his head back in.

“Go round and get it from the other side,” he ordered and stood up, dusting off his trousers, venting his irritation. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong, ever since Fenton had attacked the CI5 man outside the pub. Ten years he'd manage to avoid the law and it was all falling to bits thanks to that idiot. Still if he could find this agent and permanently silence him, he was sure it could still be salvaged.

He followed Gagen back up the stairs and lit a cigarette by the car, scanning the countryside around the house. No sign of them on the heath, but that was unsurprising; it was too exposed, too open. His eyes fell on the tree-lined stream instead. The obvious, and only, place to hide.

Gagen returned from the back of the house with the rucksack. He placed it on the bonnet of the car and unzipped it, rifling through the contents. “A woman,” he grunted. The front pockets had a more interesting yield. He pulled out a passport and a map, a folder containing traveller's cheques. He glanced up at Canavagh. ”A foreigner. Probably lost. Left in a hurry if she left her passport behind.”

“Good.” Canavagh blew smoke. “Means they can't be far away.” He nodded to the stream. “They'll be down there. Let's take a look.”

He went back to the car and retrieved a rifle from the back seat, cocked it, then they made their way slowly down towards the stream. The trees still carried leaves, turning gold and red and brown, and low growing bushes covered the ground. Canavagh stood and listened, silent, but could hear nothing but the sound of the water. He looked upstream and then down. The leaves were abundant and wet from the rain, masking any footprints.

'Which way?”

Gagen shrugged. “You take one way, I'll take the other. He's unarmed.” As he thought it, he suddenly remembered the man's ID and weapon. What had happened to his belongings? He'd given it all to Fenton to put in the car. Fenton! Gagen was livid. What the hell had he done with them? They were traceable, could lead CI5 straight to them. He cast an eye to Canavagh and, wisely, decided against revealing this latest hiccup. Instead he turned and began to pick his way south, mind still half on Fenton and what he'd do to the git when he got his hands on him.

Gagen scanned the trees, the ground, looking for a flash of blue jeans. He could hear his boss moving towards the north. It was eerily empty and Gagen kicked sourly at the leaves, hating the countryside and nervous about being alone with the CI5 agent on the loose. Injured or not, the man was highly trained and now he'd be mad as hell. That little fight at the pub was enough taste of what the lad was capable of and Gagen didn't want him coming after him, mad as hell. He should have brought a shooter.

The uneven ground was covered in large protruding rocks, low bushes, and masses of autumn foliage, blown by the wind to lie piled up against anything in its path. Gagen walked carefully but didn't see hide or hair of the man. He stopped near some granite boulders. Wet leaves were tossed in an untidy heap against one, and more blew gently across the ground. Gagen stared at the pile of leaves, wet and matted and trembling in the sluggishly moving air. His eyes narrowed.

***********************************  
Sal was making breakfast and her two young sons were fighting. Dougie hadn't returned from his tantrum the day before and Sal was short tempered with the world. She slammed the milk on the table and rounded on the boys, yelling at them to stop and give her a moment's peace. It wasn't until she drew breath that she heard hard knocking at the door and startled, she went to open it.

A powerfully built young man stood on her doorstep. His lean handsome face gazed unsmiling at her, beautiful, dark blue eyes looked her up and down penetratingly, before flicking past her to casually scan the hallway. Sal perked up and almost raised a hand to pat her hair. Never in her wildest dreams would she ever have expected a man looking like him to turn up on her doorstep. She unconsciously stood up straighter and thrust out a hip. He didn't change expression.

“Sally Jenkins?”

“Yes, that's right.”

Bodie pushed past her into the flat, right hand inside his jacket, fist curled around the solid comforting butt of his semi auto, ready and willing to pull it out and use it. Especially if his partner was being held prisoner here.

Sal, taken by surprise turned, not knowing whether to be angry or hopeful. “'Ere, what do you think you're doing…”

Bodie looked around, alert and dangerous. Two boys at the breakfast table were shovelling in corn flakes. The telly was blaring. The flat was untidy and poky. It was plain that Doyle wasn't here and Bodie relaxed slightly. He pulled his ID and waved it in the air before her.

“Douglas Fenton, you know him?”

“Well, yes.”

“He was involved in a shooting yesterday, at the bank.”

She looked blankly at him, unable to take it in. “A shooting?”

Yeah,” Bodie turned again, replaced his ID and stared at her in a predatory way. “Any idea where he got the gun?”

Despite her taste in men, Sal wasn't an idiot. She wasn't going to get caught up in this, no way. “No idea.”

“Where was he yesterday?”

”A job, he didn't tell me where.”

Bodie abruptly began searching the place, ignoring her protests as she followed him. The lower floor came up empty and Bodie had searched enough places to know that anything to be found would more likely be away from the prying eyes and curious fingers of the children. He went up the stairs to the bedrooms, followed by Sal who was yelling for the police.

Bodie turned on her, he knew her type. “Go ahead, phone them. I don't need a warrant and they'll tell you that.”

He entered the bedroom, disregarded the unmade bed and opened the wardrobe, rifling through the clothes. He then turned his attention to the chest of drawers, while Sal stood glowering in the doorway. It didn't escape his notice, unsurprisingly, that she hadn't followed through on her threat to call the police and he'd bet his HiFi system that there was something somewhere, that she rather not have the police interested in. He moved to the bedside table and yanked the drawer open. And his heart skipped a beat.

Sal was silent, hostile, watching him, his sleek head bent, his dark blue eyes hidden under black lashes as he stared intently down into the drawer.

And saw the small wallet, the lock picks, the knife. Doyle's ID, Doyle's belongings, forcibly removed from him.

Evidence proving that scum in the hospital bed - that lowlife hooked up to expensive machines, paid for by honest hardworking tax payers – had, at some point, his partner helpless and captive somewhere.

What else had been done to him?

A muscle jumped in Bodie's cheek and his eyes were blazing as they came up, to fix on the hard faced woman in the doorway.

“ _Who_ was he working for?”

She was suddenly nervous, aware that his mood had shifted dangerously and although he was just as handsome, just as smooth, she no longer fancied him. “I don't know…”

Bodie knew she was lying. He carefully collected Doyle's belongings, placed them safely in his jacket pockets and slowly, menacingly, crossed the room to her, crowding her into the corner where she couldn't escape. He leaned in, fierce and predatory and his hand rose, to leisurely shift a lock of hair from the side of her face. His voice dropped, cold and lethal and Sal, terrified, shuddered. “Who was he working for?”

***********************  
 **Chapter 14**

 

Doyle stirred sluggishly. He felt damp, pressed in, and he could smell rich mossy earth and wet ground. Something wet and clammy covered his face and mouth, blocking his airways. His first, very alarming thought was that he was being buried alive and he jolted, momentarily panicked, straining his arms against the cuffs, fighting the thudding in his head to move. A voice yelled suddenly, and his training instantly took over. He froze, listening, trying to assess his situation.

“Gagen, come back. I'll get the lads, cover more ground that way, he won't get far. There's nowhere for him to go.” Doyle stayed motionless, hearing the voices carry across the ground.

“We can phone them from the house.”

He tried to move again and thought he heard the girl hiss at him to keep still. He did so as the throbbing in his head spiralled, loud and insistent. He vaguely heard a car start up and then a slight thud on the ground near his legs, but then didn't hear anything. It was as quiet as if he was already buried deep in the ground. Even the thudding in his head faded away pleasantly to be replaced by the warm primal beat of the earth, pulsating in time with his heart. There was a faint rustling of leaves, but it was distant, remote, unimportant.

Something wet was trailing over his face. Wet and cold and he screwed up his eyes at the unpleasantness of it. “Come on mate, wake up for Gods sake.”

His eyes struggled open. The girl again, peering at him in some concern, her mass of red gold hair falling down, tickling his face. She was using a cloth, a handkerchief by the feel of it to clean the dried blood off his skin. Doyle blinked slowly and groaned very softly. She stopped immediately, and he felt her thumb gently caress the bump under his right eye, hesitant as though it might still hurt. The handkerchief trickled water unpleasantly down into his collar. He could still smell the rich damp earth, and the ever-present scent of blood.

She had turned her attention to his hair, pulling the wet cloth through the stiffened curls while he battled the urge to let go and sink back into the pain free darkness.

“Come on, get your act together, they're coming back,” she sounded angry, which surprised him.

Doyle took a deep breath. “What happened?”

“Two of them, came looking for us down here.” She refolded the cloth to a clean patch, and turned his head, seeking the gash behind his ear, still waspish. “This is ludicrous! You keep flaking out from this whack on the head and you're going to keep on doing it. You need to be in a hospital.”

Doyle didn't need reminding of it and he was short in return. “What are you? A nurse?”

“No, but I do first aid, part of my job. But this…” She touched his head lightly, still cranky, “and you… I can't believe you're functioning at all, it's deep and it's serious and it won't stop bleeding.” She paused and bit back whatever else she'd been about to say, instead giving him an intense look. “It is going to keep dropping you, you know, with what you're doing.”

“You'd rather I give in?” His temper flared abruptly. “Wait for them to finish me? Not a chance.”

She sat back on her heels and ran a hand through her own hair angry, scared and resentful, a gesture Doyle was all too familiar with.

He lay quiet for a minute adjusting his thoughts. At least now, he knew why she was angry. She didn't like being helpless any more than he did. He could still smell the damp earth on his clothing and shuddered. “I thought I'd been buried alive.”

She grimaced and squeezed out the cloth. “You had. I covered you with leaves and hid in a tree. Never been so scared in my life. He very nearly fell over you, and you were waking up, moving. Luckily his mate called him back.”

Using his stomach muscles, Doyle took a breath and struggled to a sitting position. She aided him, watching him anxiously as he adjusted to being vertical. His head was tolling like Big Ben. Doyle was aware of her worry. As he was aware of her fear, though he was grateful she was keeping a lid on it, no matter how tenuous. Despite the fact that he was in no frame of mind to do so, he figured he should somehow reassure her. It dawned on him that he hadn't even asked who she was.

“What's your name?”

“Now you ask,” she tried for a lighter tone, as though regretting her annoyance but then answered him. “Jess.”

“I'm Ray. Ray Doyle.”

“Can't say I'm pleased to meet you,” she grumbled. “Under the circumstances.”

Doyle gave a half-hearted smile. “Can't say I blame you, under the circumstances. Not my usual approach to a pretty girl.”

He saw her smile, as he'd intended and hoped it lessened her fear enough to help him without going to pieces. She was studying him again, rather intently, but his sight was still too blurry to guess what was holding her attention so avidly. She seemed a bit flustered though, as she raised the cloth again. “Hold still while I finish cleaning this mess.”

“Later. We need to keep moving.” He took some deep breaths in preparation for standing. “If they come back, that'll be the least of my worries. Help me up.”

“But my backpack, it's up there, in the house. I need to get it.”

“Leave it.”

“But….”

Doyle spoke harshly. “Leave it, I'm not risking it, or you. Which is the best direction?”

She glared at him, prickling at his authoritative tone. “I was heading south, there's a town at the end of the line. It's probably closer than the other direction, but…”

Doyle interrupted her. “Let's go then.”

“What about your foot?”

“I'll manage, just get me up and let's go before they come back.”

She got him to his feet again and Doyle forced his left foot to take his weight. Her strength again made an impression on him and, from what he could feel of her flush against his left side, she was quite athletically built, but he knew she was tired, by her own admission she'd been awake all night. She picked their way among the fallen leaves and stones lining the riverbank and Doyle hobbled along beside her, concentrating on putting as much distance as possible between themselves and pursuit, stealing his mind against the protests of both head and foot.

“What's a Bodie?” she asked suddenly, breaking the silence, breathless beside him.

“Bodie?” He stopped to catch his own breath, suspicious. “Where did you hear that?”

“You said it. When you were out of it. Before.”

Doyle drew in another lungful, and hobbled another three feet or so. A number of descriptions flitted through his head, none of them very complimentary, and he was in too much pain to be evasive. “Bodie's my partner.”

“Bodie? He doesn't have any other names?”

“None that he will answer to,” Doyle grunted, trying desperately to ignore the white-hot claws of agony snaking up his left leg.

She was silent, breathing heavily, her grip on his waist desperate, as she supported his weight. Doyle felt for her. Cowley would flay him alive, involving her in this mess, but what choice did he have? If there was an arms deal to the IRA happening, he had to find a way to stop it. And she was caught up now whether she liked it or not, in just as much danger as he was.

He said: “He'll find us.”

She looked up at him. “How? Does he know where you are?”

“No. But he'll find out. Tenacious is Bodie. He'll find us. We just have to stay ok until he does.” He had infinite faith in Bodie's ability to track him down and Bodie would do it. They had been partners for too many years, been through too much together and Bodie's loyalty, once given was absolute. He only hoped his lethal partner would be in time. “Trust me.”

“Like I have a choice,” she grumbled, but Doyle smiled all the same. At least she hadn't yet gone to pieces.

He glanced down at her, her colouring blending near perfect into the autumn surrounds. Her face was still fuzzy, but he thought he saw white teeth flash at him. He was suddenly grateful for her presence. They weren't out of this yet, not by a long shot and he grimaced more and more with each step he took, leaning more and more on the girl and she was starting to stagger. “Let's take a rest,” he suggested and sank to the ground, slowly, with her help. He watched as she rolled her shoulders in the dark green coat she wore and tilted her head from side to side, raising a hand to rub at her neck, before crouching down next to him. Doyle felt faintly guilty. His own shoulders were burning, the cuffs keeping them at an unnatural and uncomfortable angle, and he could no longer feel his hands. He drew in a breath, sniffed and forced his scattered wits to think.

“What's the quickest way to get to this town?”

She shrugged. “No idea.”

Doyle tried to focus on her face. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I have no idea. I know the general direction, but wouldn't have a clue how to get there from here. I don't live here you know.”

“You mean you've been gallivanting around out here without a map?” Disbelief punctuated his words.

She was indignant. “Of course not. I'm not an idiot. I just wasn't following that map.”

Doyle's patience, never his strong point, was running thin. “Then what map were you following?”

She hesitated, and lifted her shoulders as though reluctant to say. “A ley line, my grandfather used it as a boy, he told me about when I was a kid. It had a Roman road on it and I was seeing if I could do it, you know, navigate by landscape, like he did.”

He thought he'd misheard her. _A ley line?_ She had to be joking! He looked at her, blurry and indistinct. She seemed defensive, as though waiting for ridicule she'd already endured before now, over this. Doyle closed his eyes in weary frustration, opting to just concentrate on getting out of here. “But you do have a real map?”

“Yes.”

“Then where is it?” His voice sharpened, sparked by his temper.

She stood up abruptly and he opened his eyes at her movement - her denim-clad legs holding his attention for a more than a second, looking very long and slim from his seated position.

“In my backpack.” She swung around to glare at him. “The one you wouldn't let me go back for. Why do you think I wanted to? I tried to tell you. It's got my passport and money in it too.”

Doyle's frustration exploded. They'd know who she was, that she was a mere slip of a girl and now they'd be after them both. He jerked at his wrists, even knowing that it was useless, craving to be free of his shackles. They felt raw, stinging and he was pretty sure he was minus some skin as a result of the cuffs chaffing.

Swearing viciously and lengthily, he leaned back against the rock, spent. His arms ached, his head ached, his bloody foot ached and now he was stuck out on the moors, following some fantasy druid trail with no idea how to get to a phone and a guide that knew about as much as he did. Talk about the blind leading the blind. God, he could do with Bodie right now. His partner was more at home in this sort of environment, despite several years tramping the streets of London for CI5. He had an animal instinct for survival in rough terrain enforced by his mercenary years in Africa. But Bodie wasn't here yet; it was just him and the girl.

His stomach rumbled loudly and he savagely acknowledged that it was now more than twenty-four hours since his very enjoyable breakfast in bed. Where he should have damn well stayed.

The girl, Jess - nervous of his temper outburst - turned around, looked down at him. “I could go back now that they've gone, and get it.”

Doyle heard the reluctance in her voice, and that fear she tried so hard to hide from him. He sighed and let the frustration ebb away. Nothing he could do about it now, they certainly couldn't use the road that led to the ruined house, if there was only the one, the returning men would intercept them without fail, and there'd be no concealment on open moor land. He could only hope that this mythical line she was following didn't lead them further into nowhere.

“It's too dangerous to go back now. For all we know they've found it and taken it with them. And we don't know if they've both gone or one of them stayed behind. We'll just have to keep going. Help me up again.”

She did so, grunting and Doyle gingerly put his injured foot down, grimacing as the expected white hot jolt of agony clawed up his leg. She gazed down at his foot, thinking for a minute and then steered him towards the stream.

“What are you doing?” Doyle asked.

“You aren't going to get anywhere on that,” she said decisively. “I'm going to fix your foot.”

“We don't have time,” Doyle protested. “They could come back any minute.”

“Don't have time for your ankle to go altogether either,” she shot back, as rattled as he about their pursuers. “We need to get that swelling down.”

She guided him to a larger rock, protruding half in and half out of the water and lowered him down, then bent to his foot, quickly removing his shoe and sock, and rolling up the leg of his jeans. She glanced briefly up at the man, while she worked, fascinated again by his face, revealed, now that she'd cleaned away the blood and dirt.

She'd already thought he was good looking, but removing the blood and grime had exposed an old injury to his right cheekbone which she had at first thought was recent, an accompaniment to the gash in his head. It did nothing to lessen his attractiveness, his open face boyish and pleasant, even lined as it was, with the pain and worry he was feeling.

His wide greenish-blue eyes watched her, as she examined his ankle, turning his foot carefully and pressing the skin around the injury gently with her forefinger. The delicate appearing fibula was all but buried in the bruised puffy flesh, the strong supporting anklebones almost hidden beneath the painful swelling around the torn ligaments. She'd dealt with plenty of sprained ankles before now and saw straight away that it could have been much worse than it was. And would no doubt get worse with the weight and movement he was forcing upon it.

“It's not too bad,” she declared, grasping his foot and abruptly pushing it down into the water. Doyle yelped with the icy cold of it and would have yanked his foot back out again if she didn't have such a ruthlessly firm grip on it. “Leave it there. It's the swelling that is causing the pain and the cold water will reduce it.”

Doyle looked mutinously at her. “How do you know all this?”

“I do first aid.” She kept his foot in the water. “Actually this water is good, it's freezing, better than what I normally have to use.”

Doyle hissed in a breath, resisting his body's natural inclination to remove his limb from the frigid water. “So what do you do, to know so much about first aid?”

She grinned suddenly and her voice lightened. “I work for National Parks and Wildlife. I rescue people with sprained ankles. Lucky for you, huh?”

Doyle gave a slight shrug. He supposed that would explain her athletic build, and her strength. And her liking for wandering around, unaccompanied, in a deserted wilderness.

“It needs strapping.” She looked at his foot critically, then at him frowning. “And your shirt is hardly suitable since it's the only one you barely have on.”

“Thanks.” He said dryly as she stood up and turned her back to him. The stream gurgled on its merry way downhill, the air was chilly, calm icy cold and it was eerily still.

He squinted anxiously down at his foot. He could see the bruising, which was a good sign his sight was returning to normal, but that dark blue discolouration, as well as the pain, also told him that he wasn't going to be running for some time yet. The cold water had numbed and alleviated the ache. In fact, he now couldn't feel his foot at all and he looked up to ask if that wasn't a good thing. Just in time to see her stripping off. The words died in his throat.

He blinked furiously, willing his eyes to focus properly as layer after layer came off, until she was standing there in some lacy white creation, he vaguely recognised as a bra. Her back and shoulders were very brown in contrast and Doyle's eyes widened as they followed the lines of that slim, tanned back, right down to the waistband of her blue jeans. She bent down to the garments she had discarded, tugging and fingering them. Shivering, she settled on some sort of shirt, separating it from the rest, before beginning to dress again, piling on the layers, Doyle counted two shirts and a pullover, before she shrugged into her jacket and zipped it up.

“Christ, it's cold,” she said and turned back to see him staring at her. “What?”

“Er, nothing.” Doyle tilted his head, tried to look nonchalant. “Decided against a swim then?”

She raised her brows at his reaction, far from embarrassed. “I wear less at the beach, you know. And you look the sort of man to have seen plenty of women in that state.”

Doyle couldn't deny it. A rather large part of his non-working life was dedicated to pulling birds, with consummate ease and about as much effort, competing outrageously with Bodie as to numbers. He'd certainly had access to enough naked women in his time - but what was it about a small glimpse of lacy underwear, that could evoke such lewd thoughts? Giving himself a mental shake he tried to bring his mind back to their dire situation, but the vision he had just witnessed had disturbed his hormones far more than he cared to admit.

He was, after all, only a man and a young one at that – complete with the normal sexual interest any healthy young man would have when confronted with a half naked woman. Although, he reflected ruefully, he might have enjoyed it much more if his vision weren't still so fuzzy. “So what were you doing then? Apart from raising my temperature?”

“Raising your temperature? Well that's payback then.” She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and extracting a small penknife, proceeded to mutilate the garment she held in her hands. “I needed stretchy material to strap your foot and this is the best I could come up with. Thermal undershirt.” She gave him an indecipherable look. “You'd better be worth it, do you know how much it cost? Not the easiest clothing to find either, where I come from.”

After seeing that tanned back, he didn't doubt it for a minute. Payback was it? Doyle let a half smile curve his lips; flirting was second nature to him. “Oh, I'm worth it. And I'll prove it to you when we get out of here.”

She laughed easily and Doyle's smile widened, glad to hear it. But he was conscious of the time passing and looked anxiously back down at his foot. It didn't look any different.

Jess was at the stream, carefully keeping her feet dry as she dipped the remnants of her thermal shirt in the water. She squeezed the strips of cloth out gently and came over to him. She made him lean forward to examine the cut behind his ear again. Doyle closed his eyes and tensed his shoulders against the sting of her prodding.

It was deep and the edges glistened red, still seeping, the clot ineffective to stop the bleeding. It needed stitching, his skull likely fractured if his frequent loss of consciousness was anything to go by. She absently removed one or two leaves from his hair and agonised what to do about it.

She didn't want it to start bleeding heavily again, but it didn't look very clean either and she didn't want an infection to set in. While she thought about it, she cleaned the rest of the blood off his neck revealing the gouge down the right side, which disappeared into his ripped and bloodied shirt. Without thinking, she pulled down the edges of both jacket and shirt, in order to examine it. His empty shoulder holster hindered her access, but she couldn't remove it completely, not while his hands were cuffed.

Doyle's eyes snapped open, startled as his clothing slid part way down his arms, exposing his broad shoulders and some of his chest. He gave her a sideways glance. “Hardly the time or place.”

“Really? I thought it was a great spot myself. Assassins behind trees, freezing temperatures, wet ground. What more could a girl want? Hold still, you've got a nasty graze here, right down your neck and shoulder blade.”

He shifted his shoulders restlessly against her ministrations, goosebumps springing up in the cold air. The skin around the graze was red, angry, and he grunted softly as she probed deeper. Removing the cloth she saw dark flecks amongst the blood and guessed that whatever had caused the injury, had also deposited enough grime and dirt to cause infection to set in.

Ignoring his discomfort she swabbed thoroughly but had nothing suitable for a dressing and she wasn't stripping off again.

“Do you mind?” Doyle said impatiently. “It's quite cold you know.”

“I'm done.” She reached for the edges of his clothing, but stopped abruptly as she noticed the scars. Shiny white, puckered, almost perfectly circular and dangerously close to his heart. She stared at them. Doyle turned his head slowly to look at her over his shoulder, expressive eyes questioning.

She tried to shrug, unconcerned, but her hands began to shake. The scars were from bullet wounds. Bullets penetrating his flesh. They had to be. He'd been shot before. And that smashed cheekbone. He was no stranger to violence, young as he was. It was suddenly and brutally real to her, this whole thing. Real! She felt ridiculously close to tears and gulped them back, more angry with herself than him.

“Jess?” His voice was low, soothing, as though he knew, knew the turmoil she was feeling.

“Just...just noticing your scars.” She raised her face to his, and saw him looking at her, his wide greenish-blue eyes still slightly unfocused. That mischievous face was very easy to read and she saw a myriad of thoughts reflected there. Regret, resignation, anger, frustration and humour.

Then he smiled cheekily at her. “I have others, care to find them?”

She shook her head, recognising his attempt to make light of her distress, took a deep breath and reordered his clothing. His skin was cold against her shaking fingers as she redid the clip buttons of his ruined shirt and zipped up his jacket. She tried for a light response in return; he had enough to worry about. “When we get out of this. Maybe.”

Doyle grinned boyishly as she turned her attention to his foot, lifting it from the water, and swivelling him around to place it against her thighs, heedless of the muddy bank and the water dripping, soaking her jeans. He looked at the position of his foot against her upper legs and raised a brow but decided against provoking her further. She wasn't the first woman to notice his scars, and she'd unlikely be the last, but they all reacted the same way.

The wet cloths were wrapped tightly around the offending ankle and expertly she ripped the last layer to tie it in a secure knot. He watched her bent head as she pulled his sock and shoe back on, doing up the laces. He couldn't feel his foot at all now and he wriggled it experimentally. It felt stiff and twinged slightly but it didn't seem to hurt as much as before.

Jess had stood up, and was patting her jacket pockets down. She dug in one, and brought out half a Mars Bar. “Best I can do.” She said unwrapping the chocolate and breaking off a piece, held it up to his mouth. “It's a bit melted, but it's energy and I can hear your tummy rumbling from here.”

Doyle looked askance at the chocolate. Great! Bodie food.

*********************  
 **Chapter 15**

 

Tiny Dawson replaced the phone thoughtfully and looked up at Steele. “There's trouble. That CI5 bloke's escaped. He's in the woods around the stream. Gagen wants us armed and up there.”

Steele snorted dispassionately. “Thought Canavagh wanted to question him?”

Tiny shrugged. “I think that's irrelevant now. He says to bring more muscle. They're worried.”

Steele rose from the chair and laid aside the newspaper. “So they should be. You don't mess with those CI5 boys. Canavagh should have killed him in the first place.”

“Well that's what we're going to do now.” He picked up the phone again and dialled. “I'll get Wilson and MacInerney to meet us up there. Wilson can bring his cousins, good lads both of them.”

“How many does he want?” Steele asked surprised.

“As many as we can get.”

Steele moved to the locked cupboard against the wall. “He is worried isn't he?”

“If that lad identifies Moloney, there'll be hell to pay,” Tiny said grimly. “We underestimated him, someone should have stayed there and watched him.”

“He was half dead,” Steele protested.

“Well he's going to be _al_ l dead when we catch up with him.”

While Tiny made the phone calls, Steele took a large holdall from the cupboard and unzipped it. Inside were the two AK47's they'd shown Moloney, ammunition, and several handguns. They gleamed oily blue black, inanimate objects but absolutely fatal in the wrong hands. Steele zipped it up and looked at Tiny as he hung up the phone.

“They'll meet us at Canavagh's,” Tiny said but left his finger on the dial. “Gagen said to bring Fenton.”

Steele gave a small sound of disgust and Tiny nodded. “Yeah I know, but Gagen didn't sound happy with him. Wants to know what happened to that CI5 lad's gun.”

Steele leaned against the table and folded his arms. “Might be two bodies to get rid of, if Fenton nicked that shooter. Stupid kid.”

Tiny dialled Sally Jenkins number and waited for the connection. “Put Fenton on.”

He suddenly held the phone away from his ear as he was barraged with a sobbing hysterical woman. He cast Steele a long look. Steele sighed and crossed his feet at the ankles.

“When?” Tiny said, catching relevant words through the torrent. “How? Where's he going?”

When he hung up the phone he reached for his keys, his face grim. “Fenton used that lad's gun in a shootout at the bank. He's as good as dead. And Sal's had a visit. From another CI5 man. We need to get rid of that first one quick or the whole thing will blow up in our faces.”

He shrugged into his jacket and picked up the holdall.

*******************************  
Bodie sat in the Capri and radioed in. “3.7 to base.”

“ _Come in 3.7_.”

“Patch me through to Alpha.”

“Will do, stand by.”

Bodie waited restlessly, watching the early morning traffic pass by. He was sitting outside a small café in the main street of the town. The sun was rising higher and his stomach felt empty, his eyes gritty from lack of sleep. He'd stopped to get some food but now didn't feel like eating.

Cowley's voice came through. “Alpha.”

“Michael Gagen. Run a check on him. Fenton did his last job before the bank raid with him. His girlfriend's convinced that he didn't have Doyle's gun before that job.”

“Michael Gagen. I'll get records onto it right away. Bodie, there is a motorcycle owner in the vicinity of that town. A Harley Davidson 1958 Duo Glide - right up Doyle's alley. I want you to go and interview him.”

Bodie stiffened. “Now? What about Gagen?”

“I have a strong feeling they are connected. It will give you something to do while waiting for the checks. And Bodie, keep in radio contact. I'm driving up there now. Money laundering, bad heroin and Doyle going missing. All in the same area. There is something fishy in that town and I have a feeling Doyle is caught up right in the middle of it. Alpha out.”

“Course he is,” Bodie muttered and reached for the book of maps to locate the address for the motorcycle owner. “Wouldn't be Doyle otherwise would it? Finds trouble when he's not even looking for it. Bites him on the….”

His eyes strayed to his mirrors by sheer habit as he placed the book against the steering wheel. People milled around the footpath behind him. There were three approaching cars and Bodie idly watched them, fingers busy, flicking the pages open. Between the second and the third car, two men crossed the road, hurrying. One of them had a long holdall, carelessly tossed over his shoulder. He was large and muscular and the way he carried the holdall jolted Bodie's memory.

It flashed across his eyes quickly. Doyle tossed over a large muscular man's shoulder, head dangling, left arm swinging uselessly, blood dripping. Bodie's eyes narrowed as he saw the flashback of Doyle superimposed on this man hurrying across the road, the two images merging together, the burden across his shoulder, his arm wrapped around the lower end on the holdall - wrapped around denim clad legs. Bodie swore, threw aside the book of maps, hurriedly opened the door and stepped from the car. He was just in time to see both men get into a white Austin Princess and start it up.

Hastily Bodie inserted himself back into the driver's seat of the Capri and turned the ignition key. The Austin moved off and disregarding the oncoming traffic, Bodie spun the wheel, violently swinging the car into a u-turn to follow.

His initial urge was to chase them down, run them off the road, and bash the information out of them, but he forced himself to calm down sufficiently, knowing he would be better off following them. They just may lead him to Doyle. He carefully kept them in sight, far enough behind to not spook them but also too far for him to clearly see the registration number of the car and Bodie would rather be cautious and risk Cowley's wrath, than to have them spot him and lose Doyle.

*********************  
Tiny turned in to the main entrance of Canavagh's property and saw Gagen waiting by the gate that led to the overgrown track through the moors. Ted McInerney's Land Rover was idling nearby. He slowed down and Gagen got into the rear seat.

“I'll send the boys to start downstream, we'll go upstream. He can't have got far, not with that head injury.”

“Where's the boss?” Tiny spun the wheel and drove the Austin through the rear gate and onto the narrow track that led out onto the moors.

“Gone on the bike to finalise the arms deal. If Moloney finds out he's got loose…..”

Tiny glanced into the rear vision mirror. Gagen was a worried man.

“You've got bigger problems now,” Tiny said as he sped up. Gagen looked up. Tiny told him about Fenton, about a CI5 visit to Sally Jenkins. He watched the fury fly across Gagen's face. Michael Gagen slammed his fist into the back of the seat. “Did she tell him about me?”

“She said she didn't,” Tiny said. “But CI5 don't play by the rules. I wouldn't be inclined to believe her.”

“Where is this second one?”

Tiny shrugged. “No idea. But if we get rid of the first one, he won't be able to tie anything on us. We can just say that Fenton was acting on his own. No body, no evidence. Fenton could have got that gun from anywhere and he's not able to say otherwise.”

Gagen nodded, calming down. “And the arms will be moved out in the morning, nothing left there either. It might just work.”

*************************  
Bodie parked outside the ornate gates; imposing black wrought iron, that almost outshone the distant house and removed his 9mm browning from its holster. He checked the mechanism; made sure it was fully loaded and then reached under the seat for the spare one he kept there. He checked that one as well and tucked it into the back waistband of his jeans. Then he stealthily crept into the grounds, using the abundant garden beds for cover. There was no sign of the Austin and Bodie frowned. Where had it gone?

He skirted the wall of the property and angled around to the back of the house. Sill no sign of the Austin Princess, but a brown Ford Granada was there, parked in front of a small stable. Bodie recognised it instantly, the vision of his partner being dumped, seemingly lifeless, into its boot wasn't something he'd forget in a hurry. He glanced from the car to the house. If Doyle was in there… He eyes came reluctantly back to the car again. He'd have to make sure; it was a common enough model.

The side panels and tyres were coated with grey mud and Bodie, using all the stealth he'd learned as a mercenary crossed unnoticed over to it. He pressed himself against the rear wheel, on the far side away from the house. The car was unlocked and Bodie risked looking up and into it through the window. Nothing. His eyes registered some coins on the dashboard, some litter on the floor, a newspaper on the back seat before he ducked back down again.

Shuffling crablike to the rear of the vehicle, his ears strained for any noise from the house but heard nothing. He reached the closed boot and dug in his pockets for his lock picks.

The lock clicked open without a problem and Bodie suddenly hesitated, breathing in shallowly, readying himself for what he might find, what might be in there, and knowing nothing, absolutely nothing, could possibly prepare him for it.

He could smell a slightly off smell, something coppery, and he paled slightly, feeling sweat break out across his forehead.

He stopped, heart racing frantically but was then reassured by the faintness of it. Surely if there were a body in there, it would be far more fragrant than this slight old blood smell. He hardened his resolve, gritted his teeth, and risked lifting the lid higher in order to let the daylight in. His eyes peered in and giddy relief swept over him like a fresh breeze. The cavity was blessedly empty.

He scanned the interior looking for the source of that smell and located it. A large rusty stain on the vinyl floor of the boot - large enough to make Bodie distinctly uneasy. About where the head or foot of a person would rest, should they have been conveyed in such a manner. It convinced him he had the right car and Bodie now knew where Doyle was injured and he didn't know which he was more worried about. Head or foot.

Doyle was fast on his feet, faster than nearly anyone Bodie knew and a foot injury would assuredly curb that speed, he'd be unable to run, to escape. But a head injury was just as worrying and far more likely considering Doyle had been unconscious when dumped in the boot in the first place. Either way, he doubted his partner could get himself to safety without help, despite his abilities, which made it all the more imperative to find him.

Bodie closed the boot gently and sidled around the car to peer out at the house. Doyle had to be in there, somewhere. But if he were, then Bodie would have expected more guards, more activity. And where was the car that he had followed, the Princess that had turned into these gates and disappeared. He tapped his RT in his jacket pocket, tempted to call in, but Cowley would be more likely to order him to wait for backup. Bodie wasn't about to wait. Not even for Cowley. He took a breath, midnight blue eyes hard, and ran at a half crouch towards the house.

*******************  
Cowley skimmed down the report as the car drove steadily north under the skilful hands of Murphy. Lucas sat beside him in the passenger seat and McCabe was in the back next to Cowley.

“This doesn't add up,” he said as he rifled through the pages. “Money laundering. MI5 haven't much to go on, vague hints at best. And nothing to suggest it's tied into the bad heroin. Or Anthony Canavagh for that matter. Not even a parking ticket.”

“Could be just co-incidence,” McCabe offered. “Doyle going missing in the same area.”

“I don't believe in co-incidences.” Cowley took off his glasses. “Upstanding Mr Canavagh does, however, have some friends in some high places. If we have it wrong…..” He stared thoughtfully out of the window. “Bodie should be there by now. Give him another ten minutes then try to raise him.”

Lucas glanced at Murphy. Murphy gave a slight shrug. They both knew that Bodie would be tracking Doyle, regardless of what task Cowley had set him.

“Then you think this Canavagh may have something to do with Doyle?” Murphy asked carefully.

“Aye. I do.” Cowley was still looking out of the window, gut instinct convincing him, despite facts and figures not backing it up. “Doyle knows something, he saw something and he's being held to keep him quiet about it.”

“Bodie will find him,” Lucas said with conviction.

Cowley looked at his young operatives, all of them troubled by their missing colleague. “If he's still alive.”

“Oh I've no doubt about that, sir,” Murphy said as he turned the wheel gently. “4.5 has the luck of the devil when it comes to cheating death.”

Cowley smiled briefly, remembering, as they did, the bullets dug from Doyle's chest, bullets that should, by rights, have killed him. “Aye that he does.”

He turned his attention back to the window. And if Doyle didn't have the devil on his side, then he did have the devil incarnate and Bodie wouldn't give up until he found him.

*******************  
Bodie emerged from the house baffled. It was empty, not a soul to be found. Tastefully and expensively furnished, rooms scrupulously tidy and pristine. And as lifeless as a morgue. Bodie had searched all the rooms, including the loft and cellar for Doyle but had found no trace of his missing partner.

His eyes fell on the car again, on the mud splattered over the side panels and he crossed the driveway to run his hand down the surface. The mud was wet, fresh and Bodie lifted his gaze from it to the driveway. Not from the paved driveway, nor from the bitumen surface of the road. His eyes swivelled to the moors, extending as far as the eye could see behind the house. There was a gate in the fence. Bodie loped easily over to it and saw that far from being ancient and unused, it was oiled and in good repair. His sharp gaze followed the flattened grass, seeing the imprint of tyres, meandering away into the heather.

He glanced back at the house, empty and deserted, but here was a car that had been used recently. He had followed two thugs in a Princess but that car was not here. The only possible way it could have gone was through the gate and onto the moor. Bodie frowned against the glare, searching the hills, but there was nothing to be seen. What was out there? Was Doyle out there somewhere, waiting for whatever was in that holdall to finish him?

Abruptly he was haring back to the Capri, which he'd left parked outside a discreet distance away. He pulled out his RT as he dropped into the drivers seat.

“3.7, patch me through to Alpha.”

Bodie switched on the engine and spun the wheel one handed, turning the car into the driveway with a squeal of protest from the tyres.

“Alpha. Have you investigated Anthony Canavagh 3.7?”

“No, I came across an old friend.” Bodie paused while he changed gears, heading to the open gate. “Mr Muscles, you remember him? The bloke that dumps your agents into car boots, never to be seen again? I've followed him to this place in the country. I think they have Doyle here somewhere.”

“Breaking up. 3.7 repeat?”

Bodie swore and raised his voice. “4.5 is being held on a large property just north of the town, off Annersley Road.”

The response from the radio was static. Bodie threw it aside and concentrated on hurtling the Capri recklessly across the uneven narrow road. Whatever the muscle man had in that hold-all, he didn't think it was party crackers and Doyle was up there on his own, injured.

*********************************  
“Insubordinate…” Cowley replaced the handset hardly surprised. He glanced at Murphy. “Carry on to Canavagh's”

Lucas had the map open on his lap. “Bodie said Annersley Road didn't he?”

“Annersley, Amberley, I didn't quite catch it,” McCabe said leaning forward to look over his partner's shoulder.

”There's an Annersley Road just near the turnoff to this Canavagh's place.”

Cowley glanced up. “Bodie was following the man he thought had snatched Doyle. Well, well, it's beginning to tie in together.”

“3.7 will need back up sir,” McCabe said. “If he's gone after this bloke that got Doyle. I mean getting Doyle was no mean feat so he'd have to be good.”

“Canavagh first.” Cowley lifted the report and waved it to them. “For anyone to risk snatching a CI5 agent, it has to be big, and I want to know what it is.”

“But Doyle…?” Lucas asked.

“No heroics from you three. And no insubordination either. I've enough with those two tearaways disobeying orders. Doyle was taken by surprise, Bodie won't be. Doyle will just have to hold his own until then, he's managed to get himself out of worse scrapes before now,” Cowley said, supremely confident in his agent's abilities.

McCabe and Lucas looked at each other.

Cowley didn't miss their exchange, knew their loyalty to each other. “Once I have Canavagh you can back up 3.7 and 4.5”

***************************  
The Austin Princess was there, as well as another vehicle, a Land Rover, parked in front of a ruined old farmhouse. Bodie reached across for his RT and jammed it into his pocket before warily getting out of the car, his semi auto in fist, eyes everywhere. It was eerily quiet, the wind blowing cold against his face. He huddled into his jacket and trotted up the slope to the dilapidated building with its crumbling walls. He crept carefully around the outside, ignoring the signs. The Princess was here, which meant muscle man and his friend were here somewhere. But was Doyle? Bodie went through the standard routine, cautious, gun extended in front of him, searching the ruin thoroughly, but it was as deserted as the house he'd just left. It was beginning to spook him. Where the hell were they?

He was about to return to the car when his eyes fell on the gate set in the wall, in the north corner. It was locked and Bodie saw that the padlock wasn't old and rusty; it was new and shiny with use. He scowled at the padlock. Despite Doyle teaching him how to pick locks years ago, he still had difficulty with anything that wasn't a standard door lock. He reached for his lockpicks but they weren't in his pocket. Distracted, he searched the other pockets thoroughly. Not there.

He patted his jeans pockets trying to think what he'd done with them. He'd used them at the boot of the Ford Granada; did he leave them there? Likely they were in the Capri, probably dislodged when he pulled the RT out earlier, slithering down between the seats.

He listened intently but could hear nothing. “Doyle?” he called softly. “Ray?”

No response and Bodie debated whether to return to the car to look for the lockpicks. Doyle's were in the glove box, safe with his ID and knife, if he couldn't find his own. However no one had come up the stairs to investigate his arrival, and the Austin Princess was sitting there ominously empty. But it didn't mean that Doyle wasn't down there, maybe gagged, maybe drugged. Maybe not alone. Bodie decided on caution, instead circling the building, down the slope towards the back making sure there was no one lying in wait.

He saw the tumbled down wall, the jagged gap and the markings in the wet grass of entry and exit. Very carefully, gun extended before him, Bodie looked inside. An empty room, more footprints and scuff marks in the dusty flagstones. He let his eyes adjust to the dimness before a small shower of stones had his eyes flicking towards the far wall. He'd almost missed it, dim in the corner, but the scuffmarks on the floor were plainly visible. Something or somebody had been dragged through that small opening.

Bodie crossed quickly to the wall and looked down. There were small drops of blood on the dusty flagstones. He crouched down and wiggled himself through the gap, horribly conscious of the unstable condition of the wall as another small shower of stones trickled down. It was a tight fit and he straightened up hurriedly, backing quickly away before turning. Another cellar. He saw the chained and padlocked crates lined against the wall. He saw the discarded ropes and more drag marks. And another pool of blood.

He took all this in, angry and apprehensive. Had they already killed him and dragged him away to dispose of his body. No, if that were the case, they would have taken him up the stairs and through the gate. Then who had dragged him out of here and why? Abruptly he turned and was wriggling back through the small opening to retrace his steps to the car. No prizes for guessing what was in the crates, Bodie knew how weapons were transported and had smelled the faint odour of gun oil. Something big was going down for sure, Cowley was right.

He tried the radio again, but still only received an infuriating hiss of static. He glanced around at the seemingly endless moors. Obviously remote enough for the RT to be out of range. Remote enough to hunt down a man and dispose of him easily too. The only place of cover was down at the stream. If he'd been Doyle that's where he would have gone. Bodie set off at a trot, eyes scanning the ground carefully.

He picked up the traces of his partner almost immediately. The minute smears of blood on the tossed leaves, the dislodged small stones and scrapings in the sodden ground. Bodie gazed uneasily at the smears of blood, evidence that whatever injury Doyle had sustained, it was still haemorrhaging. How much had he lost? How bad was it? Was someone helping him to escape? Or was he being forced to move against his will?

Whatever it was, they were being pursued. He picked up the traces of five or six men, some roughly following the same path, others turning upstream.

Some skills you never lost, and although rusty, his tracking ability was still there. Bodie sped up considerably, gun in his fist, tracing their movements as easily as he had tracked marauding bands in the African jungle. And by the look of it, they weren't too far ahead of him.

**************************  
“Try 3.7 again,” Cowley ordered and Lucas raised the RT to his mouth. “3.7 respond. Come in 3.7.”

“Keep trying,” Cowley had a sudden ill at ease feeling about his two young agents. He gazed out of the window as Murphy tuned into Annersley Road. There was a large stretch of moors behind Canavagh's property, hazy and purple in the dull light and overcast sky. There was no reason why Bodie should have lost radio contact travelling on Annersley road, which skirted the edge of the moors and now that they had come into the area, he should be back in range.

“Nothing, sir.” Lucas pressed the switch again. “Met with some trouble do you think?”

“Well where one goes the other will follow,” Cowley said cryptically. He sat up as the ornate gates came into view. Murphy drove the car sedately into the entrance and they all alighted. There was movement at the door and Canavagh appeared. His cold black eyes looked at his unexpected visitors and he didn't miss the hardness in the men facing him, not did he miss the bulge under their arms indicating shoulder holsters.

“Anthony Canavagh?” Cowley asked by way of greeting.

Canavagh came out smoothly onto the driveway, his expression artfully bewildered. “What can I do for you?”

Cowley flipped open his ID. “I'm George Cowley CI5.”

Cowley gave McCabe and Lucas a meaningful look. They caught it immediately and sauntered away. Murphy stayed with his boss. “I'm told you ride a Harley Davidson Glide. A nice machine by all accounts.”

“Yes.” Canavagh looked surprised. “But it's off the road at the moment unfortunately. “I came off second best with a truck not five miles from here yesterday. It's in being repaired, as a matter of fact, I've just returned from speaking with the mechanic.”

“What time would that be exactly?” Cowley pressed, his gaze never leaving the man in front of him.

“Well the morning sometime. What's this about? Plenty of people saw me riding before it happened if you want the exact time.”

Cowley suddenly realised he wasn't dealing with an amateur. Out the corner of his eye he saw McCabe and Lucas disappear around the side of the house.

“So you didn't visit the Horse and Hounds on Sutherland Road yesterday afternoon at all?”

He shook his head. “No, I very rarely go that way, usually I ride just north of here, over the northern ridge road, less traffic. What is it exactly you are looking for Mr Cowley and I may be able to help you?”

“I'm exactly looking for two of my men who have gone missing in this area,” Cowley said, getting to the point, hoping to throw this smooth man, but his bluff didn't work.

Canavagh gave a short laugh. “Two, you've misplaced two men, Mr Cowley? Oh dear, not a good advertisement for your agency at all, is it? But what would your missing men have to do with me?”

”Well that's what I'm here to find out.” He indicated the house. “If you'd like to step inside.”

Canavagh smiled confidently. “By all means, I'm a law abiding citizen, I'll help in any way I can.”

*******************  
 **Chapter 16**

 

The dizziness was escalating and Doyle couldn't figure out whether it was lack of food or loss of blood. His neck still felt wet with the warm flow of it and Jess cast worried and angry eyes to the spot whenever they stopped. On a positive note, his head didn't pound quite so hard now and his vision had improved to the point where he could distinguish faint freckles across the nose of his unhappy companion. And thanks to her expert strapping, his ankle hurt much less, enough that he could hobble without leaning so heavily on her, and they'd covered a fair amount of ground. Not nearly as much as he would have liked, and he felt vulnerable with the loss of his speed, as though the shackles were around his ankles not his wrists.

He waited now; fidgeting restlessly while she stared at the empty stretch of moors around them, hands on hips turning slowly in a circle. “I think we have to go across there,” she said pointing. Doyle squinted in the direction she indicated, but it was too fuzzy. “There an outcropping of rock, taller than the others on that rise, and it's in a dead straight line from that v-shape in the ridge behind us. I know the v-shape is right, I was using it yesterday morning, and there is nothing else that looks like a marker to match it.” She glanced down at him. “It means leaving the creek.”

“We'll be out in the open.” Doyle didn't like it at all. “How accurate do you think this is? I mean things have changed over the years. Anything could resemble a straight line if you want it to.”

“Not nature, nature doesn't do anything in straight lines,” she said, still checking the direction and then up at the scudding clouds. “And it's heading south, at least I think it is, considering you never seem to have much sun here, so it's a bit hard to tell. But the town is at the end of the line, I remember seeing it on the map.”

Doyle sniffed strongly and glanced up at the sky as well. It looked like more rain, but it also felt very cold, a temperature drop, and the chill was coming up from the ground. Moving had kept him fairly warm, but now that they'd stopped he was starting to shiver. His vision pinched alarmingly on the edges and he knew he couldn't stay upright for much longer. And to top it all, his shoulder blades itched uncomfortably with that sixth sense he had, telling him in no uncertain terms that they were still being pursued.

The light seemed much dimmer although it was still morning, and Jess, also concerned, glanced again at the sky. With a final look at the ridge, pinpointing it in her mind, she walked back to him to take his arm.

Doyle got to his feet again but a distant shout from upstream had them both spinning in alarm. He staggered and cursed as his balance wobbled with his light-headedness. Jess was staring at the trees, as though in a trance her hands tightening painfully around his left bicep.

“Come on,” he said to her roughly and she immediately took up position, arm snaking around his waist. His foot was starting to throb again, the numbness wearing off. He limped as fast as he could and she was almost dragging him, such was her haste. The wind dropped and it became still, the only sound their laboured breathing as they sought to get over the rise and out of sight of the stream.

As they crested the incline they saw another ruined cottage, tucked away slightly behind a large tree. It had once been whitewashed but now was a dull grey colour, with gaping holes where doors and windows had once been, bare remnants of a roof, and a chimney in surprisingly good condition. It was almost too obvious and Doyle hesitated, but there was nowhere else. They couldn't stay out in the open. He could only hope the men would keep following the stream and they could move on, once they'd gone past.

The inside was surprisingly cluttered, with broken furniture, discarded belongings, and riddled with sticks and leaves and the droppings of small animals. Jess wrinkled her nose and leaving Doyle propped by the window watching for signs of the men following them, went to check the only other intact room. It was also cluttered and sported a very large fireplace, a kitchen maybe. The back wall was virtually non-existent and she could see an outbuilding, some distance behind the cottage, made of the same whitewashed stone and in basically the same state of disrepair. Conscious of pursuit, she searched for somewhere suitable for them both to hide and peered up the chimney with fascination.

“Jess!”

Hurriedly she pulled her head from the fireplace and returned to where she had left Doyle, leaning against the broken window frame. He looked at her, and she was shocked by how white he was, his greenish-blue eyes suddenly enormous in that pale face, his dark curls a stark contrast. “Sit down,” she said quickly rushing to support him. “You're going to drop.”

He allowed her to lead him to a relatively clear space behind an old upended table, which told her more than words, how he must be feeling. He hadn't admitted to any sort of weakness in the whole trek through the trees, pushing himself unmercifully and this scared her almost more than anything so far.

He sank to his knees, breathing shallowly, but made an effort to look up at her fiercely. “You have to find something to get these cuffs off. I can't feel my hands anymore.”

“Lie down for God's sake,” she snapped, fear already having a strong enough hold on her. She reached down behind him and took his hands in hers. They were icy cold and she began to rub them, trying to get the circulation going, bending and flexing his long slim fingers.

“Listen,” he snarled at her over his shoulder. He licked his lips, looking desperate. “If you can't find anything, if you run out of time, you'll have to find somewhere to hide yourself. If you don't they'll kill you too. Find somewhere to hide and when they leave, get to that town and find a phone. Call CI5, ask for George Cowley and tell him 4.5 said to listen to you. Tell him what's happened. Have you got that?”

“I'll get the cuffs off,” she grasped him by the arms, pushed him down, as fierce as he. “I'm not leaving, you tell this George Cowley yourself.”

It was too late; she saw that as soon as she'd uttered the last words. Those enormous eyes had closed, the lines of pain easing, his face relaxing to his natural impish expression, and he looked suddenly very young. The colour began creeping slowly back to his clammy skin. She turned him slightly to check the head wound and grimaced at the state of it, gaping open and looking very nasty, as was the deep graze down his neck, angrily red, weeping and patently infected.

Mindful of his instructions she tried to ignore the condition of his wounds and instead rolled him over to examine the handcuffs. They were tight on his wrists, and she pushed up the sleeves of his leather jacket, the better to see them.

There was blood here too, caked under the cuffs, where he had rubbed his wrists raw against the restraints. His watch on his left wrist and a silver bracelet on the right, made the cuffs almost unmoveable. She felt the chain connecting them; it was solid but probably the only option she had without damaging him further. She glanced at him again, relieved to see his complexion a much healthier colour, under the dirt and grime and blood.

Then she frowned; almost too healthy considering his pallor a moment before. She touched his skin. It was warm, much warmer than he should be considering how he was dressed, and was sheened lightly with perspiration. She sat back and glared at him. A temperature. He had a temperature, no doubt cause by that infected gouge down his neck, if not the head wound itself. Christ what next?

He lay on his side, long legs stretched out past the end of the table. His jeans were torn and filthy and his jacket stained and wet. She supposed she didn't look much better. Resolutely she stood up and began a quick search for something to remove the cuffs. Ten minutes later, she had nothing better than a couple of large stones that had been placed by the back door for reasons known only to the last inhabitants of the house. She had no idea if they would work, but hauled them in anyway. Carefully she put one against his back and draped his wrists over it.

As she stood up, she automatically glanced out of the broken window - and nearly dropped the stone she was holding. A man was running at full speed over the hill towards them. His face was lean and handsome, and he had a gun in his fist and his dark eyes were fixed unerringly on the cottage. From the floor, she felt Ray stirring.

Quickly she bent down and shook his shoulder. He winced as his head jostled and his eyelids fluttered. “Ray,” she hissed at him and shook harder heedless of his head wound. “Ray.”

His eyes opened and tried to lock on her. She gazed hopelessly at him. “Don't suppose your partner is well built, dark and good looking is he?”

She watched him try to take in what she'd said. He looked terrible. Then the ghost of a smile came and that street smart voice. “Nah, that can't be Bodie. He's not good looking.”

“Well, better get ready for company then,” she said shakily and stood up again, raising the heavy stone in both hands. “Hold still and don't move.”

***************************  
 **Chapter 17**

 

Cowley turned at the door. “Thank you for your time Mr Canavagh, you'll be hearing from us. I suggest you don't plan on leaving the country.” “I hadn't intended to,” Canavagh said smoothly. “However I trust that contacting my solicitor won't be against the law.” He shut the door after them and Cowley stomped bad temperedly over to the car. His men appeared like wraiths from the shadows and joined him.

“Not a damn thing. He's good, he's very good. And too smug, we won't find anything here, he'll have seen to that. What did you two find out?”

“Nothing, sir,” Lucas reported. “Clean as a whistle. No bike. We can check with the repairer, see what time he brought it in.”

“I just know he's involved with this,” Cowley fumed. “He's got to slip up somewhere.”

McCabe said offhandedly: “Doyle'd know.”

“Eh?” Cowley looked up frowning.

McCabe shrugged. “Well you said it yourself, sir. This Canavagh's too good, got his backside covered good and proper. But Doyle must know something to give him away, else why would he have been snatched?”

Cowley stared at McCabe in surprise. “Very good McCabe. We've been concentrating on the wrong man. It's Doyle we need. And quickly. If Canavagh knows we are on to him, he is likely to silence Doyle permanently, if he hasn't already done so.”

“Still can't raise Bodie,” Lucas said from the front seat.

Cowley hoped that was good news rather than bad. “Bodie said off Annersley road. Where does Annersley road go?”

“Into the village, sir,” Murphy said. “It's quite a way, the road travels through the lower part of this valley.”

“Get a description of the car Bodie is using and alert the local boys. I want Bodie's car found and I want a watch on Canavagh's house. We need to get into radio contact.” He gestured to Murphy. “Which means travelling along Annersley road until we pick up his RT signal. Keep trying Lucas, tell him it's imperative he finds Doyle alive.”

“There's just one more thing, sir,” McCabe said as he dropped into the back seat. “There's a car at the back of the house. Matching Bodie's description of the one he said was used to snatch Doyle. Couldn't tell if it's the same one, it's a common enough model, but we could do a forensics on it. If Doyle was dumped in the boot, there'd be traces of him still there.”

“You got the number?”

”Naturally.”

Lucas reached for the RT. “I'll radio it in and get the local boys to put a watch on the house”

*********************  
Canavagh stared out the window as they left. CI5, onto him already. Thank God there was nothing here. Nothing that could incriminate him and he felt a stab of pleasure at the frustration on George Cowley's face when they'd failed to find anything. Though he couldn't and wouldn't underestimate him. Cowley was likely to place a man on to watching the place, until he found some proof, but he'd be watching the front gates, not the back, where the road through the moors was unmarked and almost unknown.

The second missing CI5 agent bothered him. He wondered briefly if Gagen had managed to find and kill the young one up at the ruin. But who was the second one and where was he? He thought some more, tapping his fingers against his thigh.

Making up his mind, he moved decisively, throwing some clothes into a suitcase and walking through to the garage. Time to lie low for a while. First he needed to make sure that first agent was dead, so he couldn't identify Moloney and then he needed to get rid of the weapons from the ruin, before CI5 came back to search the place thoroughly. Throwing the suitcase into the rear seat of his Land Rover, he quietly and carefully drove out and through the gate leading onto the moors.

**************************  
Eamon Moloney took the call and heard the voice of his boss through the handset. That voice was calm and precise, but Moloney knew he'd messed up big time.

“The deal with Canavagh. There was a man.”

“A local copper, Canavagh was dealing with him.”

“That man is a CI5 agent, not a local copper.”

Moloney's hand tightened on the receiver. Recalled the fierce way the lad had fought. Remembered Canavagh stopping him from shooting the man once he'd fallen. CI5! No wonder the boss was snarky.

“This is a mess, clean it up.”

Moloney put the phone down thoughtfully. Clean it up. Ten minutes later, he was in his car. By his side, wrapped in an overcoat, lay a rifle and a Smith & Wesson handgun. Both were loaded. Moloney turned the ignition and the car purred to life. He wished now that he'd put a bullet in that lad's head back at the pub and to hell with Canavagh.

***************************  
 **Chapter 18**

 

Bodie had successfully managed to avoid the men following Doyle. They weren't very good trackers but for all that, they were closing in on Doyle faster than he'd have liked and the reason was evident in the trail Bodie was following. Doyle was moving very slowly, much slower than he was capable of and Bodie wondered briefly if it was his injury or whether he was being reluctantly forced in a direction he didn't want to take.

Bodie didn't like to ponder on why his partner was being forced to move in a direction seemingly away from the nearest urban sprawl, but a remote hidden spot, a bullet and a shallow grave was high on the list. He became absolutely focused on the hunt and his face, hard and ruthless, reflected the violence swimming so close to the surface. He accelerated his pace; having no difficulty with the obvious trail Doyle was leaving.

It veered suddenly, out of the trees and out into the open. His pursuers hadn't noticed the change of direction as yet and had kept going although he was sure they'd double back eventually when they couldn't find him. Bodie hesitated briefly before following the dragging marks through the softer ground to the open moor.

He wasn't sure why Doyle had left the stream and its cover, but it was just as well as the men following would have certainly caught up with him before he'd gone much further. Bodie also hadn't forgotten the others, the ones that had gone upstream and debated briefly whether they could avoid them enough to double back and get to the Capri by the ruined house. It would all depend on how badly Doyle was hurt. And who was with him.

The minute he crested the hill he saw the cottage. The drag marks on the grass, the exposed upturned sodden earth, the broken bits of bracken, led straight to it.

Immediately he began to run, knowing he was out in the open and very conscious of the target he was making for anyone in the cottage with a weapon. Skidding to a halt by the door, he pressed against the stonework, face grim, gun up and ready, knowing that Doyle wasn't alone, but not knowing whether he was being held hostage or not. He glanced quickly around the edge of the crumbling mortar and took in the scene in one glance.

Long legs in ripped, filthy jeans were lying unnervingly still on the dirty floor. The body they belonged to was hidden from view behind an upturned ruined table. A girl was standing, straddling those legs and she had a large stone raised in her hands. His first impression was of long red gold hair, a mass of it, hanging half way down her back, a mixture of straight and curls, but then the raised stone took his full attention.

NO! Bodie was through the door in an instant, so rattled by the thought of her bringing that deadly load down on his partner's head, he didn't think of using his gun, didn't think of a second, possibly armed person, didn't think of anything except stopping her. Her face whipped around startled, as he flew into the room and he had a fleeting glimpse of shocked green eyes before he crash tackled her; a move that would have had Wigan on his doorstep in an instant, waving a contract.

The stone flew out of her hands, crashing with a thump to the floor as Bodie landed on top of her, sprawling in a jumble of arms and legs with his gun pressed against the side of her head, his face lethal in its intensity. She didn't move, just stared up at him in a dazed confused way and Bodie saw that she was very pretty - and obviously very winded, trying to draw breath, and hampered by his considerable weight lying across her breasts.

The irrepressible Bodie surfaced for a split second as their position on the floor tickled his devilish sense of humour and he smirked down at her. “I think this is where you're supposed to say: is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me.”

She didn't share his humour and shoved at him with her hands, uncaring, or unknowing of his gun pressed against her head. “Get off! I can't breathe.”

The smirk disappeared instantly, his expression reverting back to hard ruthlessness. But his right hand still held the Browning steady, while the left one patted her down most firmly, seeking hidden weapons. She took umbrage at his intimate pawing, batting at his hands and chest, but she was no match for his strength.

He simply secured both her wrists in his left hand, stretched them above her head and continued the search with his right, which was still holding his gun. She struggled, hissing at him like a cat, but he was resolute in his search, only letting go and rising fluidly to his feet when he was positive she was unarmed. He kept his gun trained on her, and finally risked a quick look down to his partner. And did a double take, truly alarmed by what he saw.

Doyle was struggling to turn over, hindered by a large stone at his back and the shackles around his wrists. He looked ghastly and greatly concerned Bodie hurriedly manoeuvred backwards to bend down to him. He was filthy, his neck and collar coated in a mixture of fresh and dried blood, his face pale, clammy, sheened with perspiration, eyes enormous as he tried to focus on his partner looming over him.

Bodie looked him up and down from his ripped muddy jeans, to his matted dark curls, lingering angrily on the cuffed wrists, and said fiercely. “Can't leave you alone for five minutes can I?”

Doyle dropped his head back and tried to shift his pain-racked body, in no mood for Bodie's wrath. “Took you long enough.”

But Bodie, utterly relieved at finding him alive, was in full swing, his slow burning fuse well ignited and smouldering. “I mean, one minute you're having a look at a bike, and the next you're indulging in a bit of S&M with a wood nymph, who's taking her taste in sexual gratification a trifle too far, in my opinion at least - by intending to smash your head in with a dirty big rock.” He glared at the girl. “What? Handcuffs not enough for you? Is this your definition of after play?”

“Wood nymph?” Doyle squinted towards the girl, ignoring Bodie's outburst. “Is that what she looks like?”

“Can't you see her?” Bodie leaned over, looked intently into Doyle's wide green-blue eyes. “What's wrong with your eyes?”

“Nothing, just a bit fuzzy. An improvement in your case.”

Bodie glared balefully at his partner. He looked like death warmed up and Bodie didn't for an instant believe that he wasn't as bad as he looked just because he'd made a feeble attempt at a joke. Doyle would bait him; wind him up and plague him, even with one foot in the grave. He exhaled loudly, calming down with visible effort. “Well she's a sight for sore ones.”

Doyle gave his partner a severe look. “Yeah, well just remember I saw her first. Was doing fine till you interrupted.”

Bodie grinned at him. “So I saw. Had her right where she wanted you. Are you sure you want her though, I mean she's a bit extreme, mate, she might try whips next.” His expression turned serious, and he added fiercely. “You look terrible.”

Doyle grunted. “Yeah. So I've heard. From her.” He flicked his eyes sideways, unwilling to risk Big Ben tolling again by moving his head. “That's Jess.”

Bodie didn't put the gun away. Glowering at him, the girl had sat up, rubbing her head and looking very put out by their conversation. Doyle closed his eyes wearily and added. “She's looking for a Roman Road.”

Bodie gave a disbelieving snort, placed his gun down within easy reach, and examined Doyle's head and neck, not liking what he was seeing at all. He tilted his partner, by shoulder and hips, to inspect the cuffs.

“He needs a hospital,” the girl said and Bodie looked curiously at her.

At first glance she had seemed very young but he re-evaluated his initial guess to early twenties. Her face was very tanned, a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and her eyes were green, complimenting that mass of red gold hair and making her resemble even more the wood sprite he had named her. She had an accent, but Bodie hadn't picked it straight away and cared even less. He ignored her for a minute and bent back to his partner.

“Ray, we may be able to double back to the car if we hurry.”

Doyle didn't open his eyes, just nodded. “Get the cuffs off then, my arms are killing me.”

Bodie automatically patted his pockets before he remembered his misplaced lockpicks. Hearing his small curse, Doyle opened his eyes and Bodie gave a sheepish glance in his direction. “Er… I seem to have left them somewhere. The lockpicks.”

Doyle gave him a cutting look and shook his head very slightly, in an accepting, resigned sort of way. It wasn't the first time Bodie had mislaid vital pieces of equipment and it likely wouldn't be the last. “Then find another way to get them off. I'm useless like this.”

Bodie glanced around. Now that he could see the cuffs and the position of the rock behind Doyle's back, he realised what the girl had been trying to do. It wouldn't have worked, but he suspected she wouldn't have known that.

“Find some wire if you can,” he told her abruptly. “About three inches long.”

She stared at him blankly.

Doyle said tiredly from the floor: “She's an Aussie, Bodie, they're metric.”

“About ten centimetres ought to do it,” Bodie amended, not batting an eyelid, holding his index finger and thumb apart in illustration, and the girl got slowly to her feet, still eyeing the gun - and its owner - in some consternation.

Bodie bent down and grasped Doyle by his arms and hauled him easily to his feet. Doyle swayed significantly on coming upright and Bodie held on, silently steadying him. Doyle finally nodded and Bodie let go, to turn to the girl who was edging to the door leading to the other room. A flicker of movement from the corner of his eye had Bodie reacting instantly. He swung his leg; scythe like, at Doyle, catching him just behind the knees, while simultaneously diving for the girl. Doyle tumbled down instantly and, unable to use his hands to break his fall, twisted to fall heavily on one shoulder, his head snapping to the floor, stars exploding across his vision.

For the second time Bodie found himself sprawled across the shapely form of Jess as she landed flat on her back in the kitchen doorway. Almost before they hit the floor, a spray of bullets peppered the wall where they'd been standing, bits of stone and flecks of paint showering them where they lay, the noise echoing loudly in the quiet ruin. Bodie rolled off the girl and twisted around. Doyle had fallen awkwardly, had come up against the wall and couldn't move, pinned down.

The volley stopped as the user adjusted his sight and then it started up again, lower down, the bullets spraying through the gaps in the outer wall, kicking up dirt and dust in a steady line towards his injured unmoving partner.

Bodie lunged hastily, desperately, and reached out, latching on to the only part of Doyle that he could reach in time. His left foot. Bodie's powerful right hand fastened on Doyle's ankle and he hauled his partner backwards, away from that deadly spray of death.

Doyle let out a bellow of pain as Bodie hauled him into the dubious safety of the next room. He was breathing heavily, his arms wrenched up painfully and his head felt as though he'd been walloped with a truncheon. The wound had opened again and for a minute he didn't move, just concentrated on controlling the gut rolling agony of combined head, ankle and arms, fighting the star studded darkness, which threatened to pull him under yet again.

Jess scurried forward and prised Bodie's hand off his partner's ankle. “Let go! Bloody hell, let go will you!”

Bodie swung around to glare at her. “Look, just who the hell are you?”

She glared right back at him, protective of her patient. “His ankle is sprained, you grabbed him by his bad foot.”

“Jesus Christ.” Bodie let that sink in, rattled into momentary silence. He quickly scanned the limited view from the doors and windows before glancing back down at his barely conscious partner. He said wryly: “I suppose that means he won't be running out of here.”

The girl looked up at him wide eyed and scared, still protectively crouched in front of Doyle. Bodie thinned his lips and debated what to do. Another volley of bullets slammed into the stonework and pushing Jess aside, he grasped Doyle around the waist, heaving him further to safety. Jess cowered away from the bullets, hands over her ears.

Bodie pressed himself against the inside wall and darted a look into the first room. First things first, he told himself. He had to stop the shooting, then he had to stop the girl going to pieces, then he had to get Doyle moving. Piece of cake really.

“See if you can rouse him,” he told the girl curtly, before rising with catlike grace, and slipping out of the back of the house. He sidled around the corner by the chimney, coming up behind the tree and looked at the rise that led to the stream. There were four of them, silhouetted against the hill. Bodie could see them quite clearly; they made no attempt to hide, although they were cautious enough not to approach the cottage. Wishing he had a rifle and scope, he took careful aim with his 9mm semi auto.

Doyle was the handgun expert; he could have dropped them easily. Bodie was no slouch himself but he would have been happier feeling a rifle snug against his shoulder for this distance. Using the trunk of the tree for a shield, he fired twice, mindful of his limited ammunition. One of the men dropped instantly and the others scattered, like a flock of birds, diving for cover. Bodie watched in satisfaction as they scrabbled backwards, pulling their mate with them.

They became suddenly hazy, indistinct and blinking, Bodie glanced around in surprise thinking for a minute that it was his eyesight.

Mist was swirling, eddying up from the ground. He looked up seeing the low scudding clouds, although there was no wind. Hurriedly he scooted back into the cottage. Jess had managed to get Doyle to a sitting position and he was conscious.

“We've got company,” he said shortly to his partner. Doyle looked bone tired, the girl not much better. Bodie crouched down next to him and checked his head again. The blood flow was sluggish, not spouting, which was something at least. “This is going to be hairy.”

Doyle looked up at him and Bodie could see what he wanted to say. He stared back ferociously, daring him to say it and knowing that Doyle wouldn't. Just as Doyle knew that he wouldn't leave him behind, no matter what.

He reached out and pulled Doyle upright, holding him still until Doyle got his balance. Then he shoved him towards the girl. Doyle yelped and hopped on his right foot until Jess ducked under his arm. Bodie had his gun in his fist and dropped to the floor, to wriggle closer to the door. Cautiously he peered out, but saw nothing, heard nothing and the mist was thickening, making visibility that much harder.

A slight drizzle began as he wriggled backwards and followed Doyle and the girl. They hadn't gone far. The girl was trying to support Doyle's weight but Bodie could see she was exhausted, running on sheer emotion, particularly after the shooting. Her hands were shaking and she looked almost as bad as Doyle did.

He reached them in six easy strides and took his partner off her. Doyle hobbled along gamely and Bodie switched his gun to his left hand so he could get a grip on Doyle's waist, taking most of his weight off his left leg. The position was awkward, and Doyle leaned heavily against him, unable to use his arms. How the girl had managed to get him this far with those cuffed wrists was beyond him but he was fervently glad she had.

“Christ Doyle,” he grunted. “When did you start eating?”

Doyle snorted dismissively. “I haven't, and I'm starving.”

Bodie guided him to the small outbuilding as the rain increased, great plops of soaking water hitting the ground. Doyle let his head hang back and opened his mouth. The rain felt cold against his skin. He was thirsty and they hadn't been game to drink from the stream. Jess had flatly refused without boiling it first, muttering something about where she had come from and dead 'roos.

He looked around for her and saw that she had veered to the side, where some old fencing was piled against the wall of the building, but then Bodie had him inside, was lowering him gently to the floor.

Bodie switched his gun back to his right hand and looked around. The outbuilding was as cluttered as the main one, mostly timber stacked in neat piles and the mouldy remains of a hay bundles. A large piece of canvas was hanging on a peg in the wall, a horse blanket maybe? He checked the inside carefully; noticing there was a small back door leading out onto the moors and returned to Doyle as Jess came in the front one. She came straight over to him and held up a piece of wire. About three inches long.

“Good girl,” Bodie said approvingly and took it from her. Doyle looked at him sceptically. “You'd have more luck shooting them off.”

“What? And risk you getting a ricochet in either of your hands? Not to mention that hot head of yours. Not a chance, Doyle. You can't hold a gun with damaged hands. You're no good to CI5 without a gun. As Cowley is so fond of telling us, and in your case, that's two hands.”

“What are you carrying?” Doyle asked resignedly as Bodie crouched down behind him with the piece of wire.

“Against an AK47?” Bodie carefully inserted the wire into the locking mechanism of the right cuff. “Not enough.”

“AK47?” Doyle gave a low whistle. “I think they mean business.”

“I'd say. Who the hell are they anyway? And what have you done to make them want you this badly?” Bodie queried testily. “Bed one of their wives or something?”

“Well if I did, she didn't let on.” Doyle gritted his teeth against the stinging in his wrists as Bodie battled the locks. “An IRA arms deal, according to Jess. Walked smack into it, I suppose, though I can't remember.” The tugging increased as Bodie manipulated the wire and he let out his breath with a hiss. “You're too heavy handed.”

“No I'm not.” Bodie swore as the wire bent. “You can't remember?”

“No, I remember men, parts of a fight, but that's it, the rest is a blank.” Doyle grimaced as the cuffs bit further into his abused wrists. “Go lighter and veer to the left.”

“Do you want to do it?”

“I would if I could,” Doyle shot back vehemently, temper sparking.

Bodie ignored the temper; water off a duck's back after all these years. “Told you carrying these things around would end up with you like this one day.”

“You didn't say that when I finally got them on Johnny the Turk after that club raid.”

“That was different,” Bodie grunted as he twisted the small bit of wire.

Doyle exhaled derisively. “I'll say, another five minutes and he would have finished you.”

“I was in control.”

“Yeah, you put his hands around your throat and wouldn't let him go.”

Bodie stopped and looked irritably at his partner. “Well what am I doing wrong then?”

“Lighter and bend it to the left.”

“That's what I'm doing.”

Doyle jerked at his wrists, temper exploding. “For God's sake Bodie, stop mucking about and just shoot the damn chain.”

But Bodie still hesitated, knowing how shrapnel could fire off in all directions from such a dangerous stunt.

“Bodie!”

Bodie flung the wire away and stood abruptly, angrily glaring down at his partner. Doyle looked done in; the flash of blue temper in his eyes the only colour in his face besides the bright red of the blood. The girl did too, crouched silently in the corner, hugging her knees, shadows of fatigue across her cheeks.

Bodie thought he recognised the first signs of shock setting in and knew he'd have to do something about it, or she'd be a liability. Doyle was still tough enough to use the spare handgun though and without his help, none of them were likely to get out alive. Not against an AK47. The cuffs had to come off, no two ways about it.

“You know I'm right,” Doyle said impatiently.

Bodie made a face. “You always say that.”

He looked around, assessing the room, judging the best place. The timber was the best option. Jess stayed in her corner. Bodie glanced at her and down to Doyle and inclined his head in her direction. “I think your friend needs some shock treatment.”

Doyle squinted in the girl's direction. She'd done well, held up better than he'd expected, but the shock of the gunfire had finally tipped her over. They didn't have time to coax her out of it gently and Doyle felt guilty in advance for what had to be done. And Bodie would do it, brutally if he had to, to get the desired result.

“She's feisty enough,” he said to Bodie. “Get her angry, should be easy for you.”

“Feisty?” Bodie rolled his eyes. “Two of you, that's all I need.”

He got his partner to his feet and half carried him to the back of the building to the pile of timber, various lengths of cut logs, possibly old firewood. Doyle, seeing what he had to do, lay down and Bodie pulled his wrists so that they were at an angle away from his body, ignoring Doyle's grunt of discomfit. Then he methodically began to pile as much of the timber as he could in and around his partner, using the larger pieces of wood, to give him as much protection as possible. He topped it off with the old piece of canvas blanket, which still smelled faintly of horses. Doyle disappeared under all this, leaving his wrists, with their crippling restraints exposed.

“Keep a watch on the door,” Bodie told the girl, and she got slowly to her feet to obey.

He crouched by Doyle's side, leaned over, took careful aim. Outside the rain eased up, although the air was getting colder. Jess was watching the stretch of ground behind the house. Bodie paused, thinking, reluctant to pull the trigger, no matter how necessary it was. He clicked his fingers, expression suddenly enlightened as if a revelation had just struck him.

“Was it Tania? In the typing pool?”

Doyle's voice came muffled from under the blanket. “Get on with it, Bodie!”

Bodie steadied his arm, felt his pulse racing. The section of chain was hardly long enough for this sort of stunt and he was horribly aware of Doyle's wrists and forearms in close proximity to where the bullet had to hit; a bullet that could ricochet in any direction. He didn't like it, not at all, but there was no alternative and he cursed leaving the lockpicks behind.

“Hold your breath, sunshine.” He inhaled slowly, aimed again, and squeezed the trigger. The shot was deafening in the small space. The girl jumped and spun around. The smell of cordite floated in the air, and it was eerily silent after the blast had echoed away. Bodie leaned back, heart racing, almost not wanting to check for damage….if he'd missed and maimed one of Doyle's arms.

A voice came muffled, accusing, from beneath the canvas.

“You missed.”

Annoyed Bodie moved over to examine the chain. “I didn't, it just didn't hit cleanly.”

“You're wasting bullets, Bodie.”

“You can always stay in them,” Bodie retorted. As if it wasn't nerve racking enough…as if it wasn't dangerous enough, without his recalcitrant partner baiting him. He returned to his position, leaned against Doyle's shoulder and took aim again, extending his arm out away from his own body.

Blocking everything out, Bodie concentrated on the small length of chain. He again squeezed the trigger, the noise as loud as before, but this time it was echoed by a small yelp from under the canvas blanket. Bodie's heart stopped for a split second, until he realised that it was just the sharp pain from the impact of the bullet into the chain.

A long relieved groan followed as the links parted and Doyle's arms were freed. Bodie, was at the timber, pulling it away, revealing his filthy, bloodied partner, who rolled to lay flat on his back, arms flung out, a wide white grin on his face. Bodie, vastly relieved that he'd caused no damage, smiled affectionately at him. “Idiot.”

“Free idiot,” Doyle corrected, blissfully stretching his shoulders.

“Here.” Bodie pulled the spare semi auto from the waistband of his jeans, abruptly serious. “It's loaded, one up the spout. They're still out there.”

Without ceremony he pulled Doyle to his feet, handed over the weapon but Doyle's numb fingers refused to close over the handle, and it fell, with a metallic clang on the stone floor. He hopped on one foot and rubbed his hands together. Bodie picked up the gun again and looked questioningly at his partner.

“Can't feel my hands,” Doyle muttered, “They've been dead for ages.”

“Well you could have said before.” Bodie turned and beckoned to the girl. Her face was blank, white and she moved lethargically. Bodie assessed her quickly; knowing he had to needle her, get her angry enough to stop the shock setting in. At least she wasn't too far gone yet, not if she was still responding to his orders.

“Can't take advantage of him now, love,” he told her slyly. “He can fight you off now, unless you've got another set of cuffs stashed away somewhere in there.” His eyes took in her snug jeans, and a slow, wicked, very Bodie-ish smile crossed his lips. “Doubtful.”

He felt Doyle lift his gaze from his wrists to the girl, before coming back to gaze shrewdly at him.

Cottoning on, Doyle said. “What makes you think I was fighting her off? Had it all arranged, nice little spot by the stream, no one around, ….”

“Well you can't have two birds on the go can you mate, very messy that. In bed.” Bodie glanced back at the girl and almost laughed at the burgeoning bafflement on her face. “Better you take me on, love. I can take the punishment.”

“Yeah feather dusters, that's his style,” Doyle said smartly.

. Bodie gave his partner a raised eyebrow. “On second thoughts better forget it. Aussie girls, no stamina, so I've heard, better off leaving her behind.”

He watched her carefully, watched as his words sank in, penetrating the fog in her head, dissolving that blank look from her face as she gradually, but surely, took offence at his callousness. Bright spots of colour flared in her cheeks, green eyes flashed with dislike.

“What makes you think….” she began hotly.

“Much better,” he cut her off, thrust the Browning semi auto into her hands, then shoved her towards Doyle so roughly that she collided with him and they both nearly went over. “Anyone comes at either of you, use it.”

“Bodie wait,” Doyle began but Bodie was gone, out into the mist.

Jess stared after him bewildered, holding the gun gingerly as though it might explode.

“All right now?” Doyle asked quietly, still trying to get some feeling into his hands and arms.

She returned her gaze to him, and nodded hesitantly. “Yeah, I think so.”

“We aren't out of this yet. Can you manage?” He watched her bit longer and saw that Bodie's goading had at least done a temporary job of keeping her in the here and now.

“I'll have to won't I?” she said feebly. “But I'll tell you right now, I've crossed secret service off my list of career moves.”

Doyle smiled his unutterably angelic smile at her and she shook her head at his chameleon ability to be so hard and ruthless one minute and then charming and impish the next. Those eyes, they'd get her every time.

She could tell he was still having trouble with blurry vision. How he was expecting to fire a gun accurately was beyond her. Or hold it for that matter, since he didn't even have enough grip to effectively rub the numbness from his hands. Focusing on him though, kept her distracted from their frightening situation, her knowledge and training in first aid able to override her panic, and at least, in the short term, prevent her from going to pieces. Bodie had been right to provoke her.

“Here.” She put the gun hurriedly down, took hold of his right arm and began briskly rubbing it from his elbows to his wrist, squeezing and massaging his fingers. He was much more focused now that he was no longer restrained and his gaze was steadily on the door, obviously concerned for his friend. She couldn't think why. If anyone looked like he could handle himself, then that man was Bodie.

Then again, looking at Ray, she supposed the same could be said of him, if he hadn't been so badly injured. His expression was altering now, even as she watched, more alert, more calculating. Bodie was quite frightening in his intensity but Ray was somewhat more changeable and he was shifting now, becoming harder and hostile.

She felt the muscles in his arm tense up, flexing as the blood started circulating, but his gaze remained on the door, his head cocked as though listening. She truly didn't know how he was standing at all. His skin was still an awful clammy colour, eyes overbright, full lips pale, as though he were on the edge of blacking out again, and compared to the arrogantly healthy Bodie, it was clear that the only place he should be, was in a hospital bed. Had Bodie any idea how serious his injury was?

Ray had said they were partners. She didn't think you could get two men so different if you tried. They were much the same age, much the same height, both had a fit, athletic build but similarity stopped there. Ray was slim, wiry, leanly muscled, his face open and good humoured. Bodie radiated pure power and a ruthless attitude that gave his smooth good looks an added dangerous edge. “I thought you said he wasn't good looking?”

“Bodie?” Doyle frowned, still watching the door, shifting restlessly. “He's not.”

Jess started on the other arm. The cuff on his wrist was still cruelly tight, a couple of links of chain dangling, giving her the strong impression of a prison escapee. Pins and needles began and Doyle hissed in through his teeth. She rubbed harder, grunting with the effort, his leather sleeves hindering her ability to get the circulation going effectively.

Doyle leaned awkwardly down and picked up the handgun, felt it fit his palm and adrenaline surged through his veins, giving him a desperately needed energy boost.

She was industriously squeezing his biceps when they heard the sound of gunfire from the main building. His head snapped up at the noise and he swore as his skull protested, reverberating like a drum. His vision wavered again and he put a hand up to the centre of the pain, behind his right ear. Jess grabbed it before he could connect. “Leave it,” she said, “It's nasty and it already looks infected. You'll just make it worse.”

“Worse?” Doyle said in a disbelieving voice.

“I'm worried about it Ray, honestly.”

He ignored her, anxious for Bodie. His right arm still tingled, his fingers felt like they were being stabbed with needles but Doyle hobbled to the doorway, releasing the safety catch on the handgun, the ingrained habit of watching Bodie's back too strong to ignore. The shackles still rubbed at his wrists, the ends of the chain gently clinking, and his shoulders burned with the release of that tight posture. He rolled them and clenched his teeth against the sore muscles. Now where was his idiot partner?

“Will he be alright?”

Doyle squinted out into the foggy yard. “Oh yeah, seventh cavalry charge is Bodie.”

***********************  
 **Chapter 19**

 

Gagen stopped, halting Steele and Tiny as the sound of sporadic gunfire came floating across the moors. They looked at each other.

“Looks like we went in the wrong direction,” Tiny said, turning around. They began a quick trot downstream, moving quickly now that they weren't actually searching hidden spots for the man.

As they trotted past the ruined house they heard a car and stopped, guns ready but it was only Canavagh. Gagen swore softly as his boss pulled up and alighted. Canavagh looked hard at the Capri and glanced around.

He spotted Gagen immediately. “Have you found him?”

“Not yet, but we've just heard gunfire, so he's in that direction. The Wilson boys and MacInerney went that way so maybe they've got him.”

“We need to be sure,” Canavagh said roughly. “You make sure he's dead. I'll load up this shipment and we'll all lie low for a while. Once the deals done, there'll be nothing here to pinpoint any of this on us. I've covered our tracks well. He's the last loose end. If he gets away, we all go down, Moloney will make sure of it.”

“Whose is that car?” Tiny asked, indicating it with his gun, a slight frown on his face.

“There's another missing CI5 man, according to their chief. I've just had a visit from him.”

“Two of them,” Gagen grunted. “How'd he know where to look?”

Canavagh shrugged, staring at the Capri. “I don't know, but however he found out, he didn't tell his boss, he has no idea where they are. Use it to get rid of their bodies. And keep a sharp look out; if he's here searching for his mate, he'll be armed.”

Gagen looked at Tiny, then Steele. Steele cradled the AK47 more firmly and nodded and the three men moved off.

They moved more cautiously now, listening, weapons at the ready.

“He made some ground for someone as banged up as he was.” Steele grunted as they travelled downstream, avoiding the obstacles despite the thickening mist.

“CI5,” Gagen said bitterly. “Can't underestimate them.”

He stopped abruptly as a couple of figures materialised from the fog and took aim but it was just Wilson's cousins, one supporting the other, who was holding a very bloodied hand to his side.

Paul Wilson was furious. “Thought you said he wasn't armed.”

Gagen looked at the younger man, the wound wasn't serious, he would live. “He wasn't.”

“Well someone there is. I'm getting Simon to a doctor. I'll tell him it was a hunting accident.”

Gagen caught his arm as he made to move on. “But it didn't happen here.”

Paul Wilson stared at him, still angry, but as angry as he was, he knew to not cross Canavagh, and Gagen was Canavagh's right hand man. He nodded. “All right.”

Gagen let him go. “Where is he?”

“In that other ruined cottage, the one just over the rise with the rowan tree beside it.”

“Looks like his mate's found him,” Tiny said grimly.

“Then he's trapped,” Steele said with satisfaction. He hefted the AK47 and looked at Gagen. “Nowhere to go but open moors, he'll be a sitting duck.”

“Where's MacInerney?” Tiny asked. “He's still got the AK47 hasn't he?”

“Yeah,” Wilson was anxious to go. “Evan was going to try and creep up on them, but MacInerney wanted to wait for you, said you'd hear the gunfire.”

***************************  
Bodie reappeared, just as Doyle got to the doorway.

“One with the AK47 in the cottage, the other is still on the rise and now they know we're armed.”

“You can't stand against an AK47,” Doyle said as he peered out the door into the fog.

Bodie nodded at Doyle's foot. “You can't run from one either.”

Doyle looked at him impatiently. “If we get a head start, we can lose them. The fog will shield us.”

“Pneumonia,” Bodie sniffed.

“Bullet,” Doyle shot back.

Bodie turned and looked steadily at his partner. Noticed the waxen shade of Doyle's skin, the pale lips and the fever bright eyes. He doubted Doyle would get very far at all and knew he was just trying to give him and the girl a chance. “Go where?“

Doyle indicated Jess with a slight lean of his head. “On a faerie trail.”

Bodie cast her a puzzled look.

The girl looked predictably defensive. “The ley lines aren't anything to do with faeries or magical stuff, they're just ancient walking paths. I'm not making it up! My grandfather travelled it all the time to work and he didn't have a map or a compass. It's a right of way.”

Bodie looked back at Doyle with a perplexed expression. “Who is she?”

“Dunno, but I'll find out. Over dinner. When all this is over.”

“Do you mind,” she cut in acidly.

“You already said yes,” Doyle reminded her with a flash of his normal impudence. “When you had me half undressed at the stream.”

“Only half? Doyle you _are_ slipping.” Bodie raised both eyebrows suggestively at the girl. “Was this before or after the handcuffs.”

Jess rolled her eyes, enduring their little game. “Half was quite enough,” she said pointedly. “It was cold after all, can we go now please.”

Bodie exchanged a long glance with his partner. Doyle said: “We have to get the information about the arms deal to Cowley. Sitting here and getting shot, won't accomplish that will it? And she's done in, Bodie.”

“And he needs to be in a hospital.” Jess said, her voice rising slightly. “I think he has a fractured skull and an infection.”

“Now she's just being bossy,” Bodie complained as he moved to his partner's side, and gently draped Doyle's left arm across his shoulders.

“Well,” said Ray Doyle accusingly. “That's your fault, you made her angry.”

They left through the back door hurrying away into the fog, leaving the gunman in the main house. Jess stared in the direction where, not that long ago she had seen the rock marker. It floated in and out of the fog bank like a ghostly pillar and resolutely she began to walk towards it. Bodie, supporting Doyle, followed her.

“I don't like this,” he muttered.

Doyle gave a short laugh. “I don't either.”

“I mean, she can't believe it can she?”

“Well there are lines across Britain you know. You can see them on maps. Whether or not the markers are there is another thing entirely.”

“What's this about a Roman Road?”

“Well they liked straight lines didn't they? Stands to reason they'd put them on one already there.”

Bodie snorted. “I suppose there are trolls waiting to jump out at us as well.”

Doyle looked at his partner. “Only if you're a Billy Goat Gruff.”

Voices came eerily across the mist behind them, shouts and answers. Bodie abruptly accelerated, dragging his partner along with him. Jess was already running, trying to escape into the mist.

“Thought you said there were only two,” Doyle panted, his foot screaming in protest at Bodies sudden surge forward.

“The others must have joined them, the ones that went up stream. The muscled wonder, who you probably don't remember, since you were pushing up zeds at the time.”

“Charming,” Doyle said coldly.

“They want you dead, Ray.”

“I noticed.”

“ _Why_?”

Doyle shrugged and despite his tight lipped resolve, let out a small groan of pain. Bodie looked sharply at him and slowed down slightly. “It has to be more than an arms deal. What did you see?”

Hazy figures, shifting elusively. Doyle concentrated but they refused to materialise through his permanent headache. “I don't know.”

“Well whatever it was, you'd better remember sunshine, because they obviously think it's important enough to put you six feet under.”

Another volley of shots from the automatic rifle rang out and they instinctively hit the wet muddy ground. Shouts followed and then another burst from the AK47, this time sounding from a different direction, although it was hard to tell.

“They're guessing.” Bodie said risking a look up. “They can't see us. Keep going, keep our heads down.”

But they were soon forced to stop again as the fog closed in around them and they could no longer see the marker. The danger of getting lost was just as real as the danger of turning a circle and running straight back into the men behind them. Doyle sank to the ground, no longer able to take the strain of standing upright on his ankle.

“So what did the druids do when fog happened?” Bodie said caustically to the girl as she stood staring at the non-existent horizon rubbing her cold hands together.

“Bodie,” Doyle protested from the ground. Bodie glanced down at him and it did nothing to improve his disposition. He could see that Doyle was running on reserves. He still had the Browning in his hand, the grip on it reassuringly firm but Bodie knew he was light headed; he had too much difficulty standing without support now. He wholeheartedly agreed with the girl that he needed a hospital and soon.

“Well which way?” he asked impatiently.

She shrugged. “I don't know. We need to go south, but which way is south? We could be turning in circles.”

“Well at least they'll be having the same problems,” Doyle said philosophically.

“Not if they know the area well,” Bodie disagreed. “And they could do.”

Almost as if to prove his point, voices again shouted, disembodied through the mist, their origin confusing as the fog eddied, distorting sound.

Bodie grabbed the girl's arm and pulled her brusquely to the ground, beneath any random bullets fired in their direction. She sprawled at his feet with a sharp grunt, hands out to break her fall, palms skidding through the grass. Bodie had his gun out, watching, trying to penetrate the haze surrounding them. He glanced at Doyle again. Doyle looked back. He was shivering but his skin and lips felt hot and dry. Bodie, concerned, said softly. “All right Ray?”

Doyle nodded. “I'll do.”

Jess was scrabbling through the dead grass, feeling the ground with her hands. “Look,” she whispered excitedly. “The ground is hard here, it's not dirt. There are stones under here, laid in a pattern.”

Bodie stared at the girl as if she'd gone mad. “Are all Australians like you?”

But her eyes were shining as she looked at them. “It's the road, the Roman road, I'm sure of it. See? It's fairly straight and even, and nature doesn't do anything in straight lines. It's about the right spot too, in the same direction as the marker.”

Bodie turned back to Doyle and tilted his head in her direction. “I thought you were joking.”

“It's on the ley line,” Jess said with exaggerated patience, shooting him a withering look. “It means we can follow it through the fog and it will lead us to the town at the end of the line.”

That certainly got his attention. Bodie swung his gaze back to her. “Are you sure?”

She beamed at him, as though they weren't being pursued, as though she hadn't been shot at, as though she wasn't filthy, scared and way out of her element. She looked as excited as if she'd just discovered it on an archaeology dig. “Yes I'm sure, the town was at the end of the ley line and the Roman Road followed the ley line.” She sighed happily. “Just think, Roman legionnaires once walked right along here, where we're standing now. It's so unbelievable. My grandfather…”

“Yeah,, yeah yeah,” Bodie cut her off, helped Doyle to his feet, considerably less interested in Roman legionnaires, than he was in British murderers and anxious to be gone.

Despite his clenched jaw, Doyle was unable to prevent another low groan escaping, as he came upright and Bodie was edgy, he could feel the heat coming from Doyle's skin, could also feel the fine tremors running through his partner's body. He felt anger boil up, blind rage at the men behind them on the moor, the ones responsible for Doyle's injuries and fought the urge to turn and hunt them down. He didn't have the ammunition, or the cover he needed against the assault rifle, and he couldn't leave Doyle or the girl. He set his mouth in a hard line and gestured with his gun to her. “Never mind your grandfather and the history lesson, just get us to this town.”

It could scarcely be called a road, Bodie thought, ten minutes later. It wasn't in the best condition; hardly surprising considering its age, and it was covered in grass and heather for the most part, wide gaps of missing stones in other parts, and at one point submerged entirely in muddy peat smelling water. Bodie lifted a foot with distaste and said: “I hate having wet feet.”

Doyle didn't answer, concentrating on keeping upright, leaning heavily against Bodie now, virtually a dead weight, so that Bodie was very nearly carrying him.

Aware of Doyle's deteriorating condition, aware of his own limitations with supporting his partner at the speed they needed to travel to outrun their pursuers, Bodie again took his RT from his pocket. “3.7 to Alpha…?”

Static hissed infuriatingly from the handset. “3.7 to Alpha come in Alpha.”

He looked at Doyle and raised the device again. “3.7 to Alpha, if you can hear me, Tinman, Scarecrow and Dorothy are following the yellow brick road. Would appreciate the Wizard of Oz sending some back up.”

The RT hissed uselessly and Bodie shoved it back in his pocket irritably.

Jess was bent over feeling with her hands through the grass, trying to locate the next section of the road. It was getting lighter as they ascended from the dip, the mist clearing.

“There they are.” The shout came from far behind them, followed by another volley of ammunition from the AK47. Bodie cursed and turned, handgun out firing, but the mist swirled again, hiding them from view.

“Too far away,” Bodie said and glanced, tight lipped, at Doyle. The sudden spouting of gunfire had roused his partner, enough to have his gun out and pointed behind them, squinting through the mist. But he was unnaturally quiet, his reflexes slower than normal and Bodie was worried. Worried mostly about that head injury - he could see Doyle struggling against the dizziness and exhaustion caused by it. But he also knew his partner, knew Doyle wouldn't give in without a fight and he had the devil's own luck when it came to survival.

Jess had hurriedly moved ahead, finding their path, and there was nothing he could do but take Doyle's weight and follow her. He knew they weren't moving fast enough, knew that Doyle knew it as well, although the pinched pain in his partner's face told him far more than words how much Doyle was pushing himself. He could feel their enemy behind them, and had the most disquieting sensation as though a stream of bullets were about to penetrate their naked backs. Bodie fiercely gripped Doyle around the waist and carried on, following the slim, shapely form of the girl as she unhesitatingly followed her Roman road.

“Hush,” Doyle said suddenly, lifting his head. He licked cracked lips, gripped Bodie's arm for balance and looked carefully around. “Can you hear that?”

Bodie listened as well. It came to him finally, distorted by the muffled quality of the fog. Traffic. It wasn't regular but every so often they could hear the noise of a car. “Was there a road near this town?”

Jess looked embarrassed. “I can't remember. I didn't want to memorise it, I was trying to do it the other way.”

“Never mind.” Bodie nodded at her, buoyed however remotely, by that faint sound. “Keep going.”

*********************  
Anthony Canavagh sweated as he worked, transferring the weapons from the crates stashed in the cellar to the back of the Land Rover. It was a job that needed more than one man, but he was anxious to clear the evidence off his land. He heard the faint and irregular sound of gunfire in the distance and hoped to God it was the CI5 men receiving it. It was highly likely. Not even CI5 could come out best against an assault rifle, even without the severe injuries on one, and some tourist girl for baggage.

It was all still salvageable. Dead, and their bodies dumped miles away; he could carry on, without a shred of evidence against his name. Go abroad for a few years, let the dust settle. In future he'd have to be more careful with the men he picked for the jobs he did. That Fenton…. he snorted in disgust.

Retracing his steps for the umpteenth time, he appeared from the ruins to find another vehicle had parked next to the Capri. He recognised the car instantly, recognised the man stepping from it and his mouth went dry.

Another gunshot made no difference to the volley coming up from the lower valley. No one even noticed it.

**************************  
 **Chapter 20**

 

It showed gradually, appearing out of the fog like a ghostly ship at sea. Not a road. A large shed. All by itself, on the edge of a narrow country lane. Bodie exchanged a look with Doyle and nodded. A possible phone line.

“They'll know,” Doyle said referring to the men following them.

“No choice,” Bodie said supporting him while the girl went ahead. “We need back up and cover, the fog's lifting.”

The shed wasn't well maintained and wore the air of abandonment, gloomy and eerily silent in the surrounding mist. Bodie had had his fill of empty dwellings, and was fed up to the back teeth with desolate ruins.

“Doesn't _anyone_ live out here?” he complained. He left Doyle with Jess and tried the door. Locked. He contemplated smashing a window but at Jess's gasp turned back. Distant figures could be seen fading in and out of the swirling mist.

“Around the side,” Bodie said quickly. He spun back to Doyle and took his left arm, pulled it across his shoulders, supporting his partner and taking as much weight as he could off the injured ankle. Doyle had his gun in his right hand and he gripped Bodie's shoulder as they made their way towards the rear of the shed.

It was large, with plenty of barred windows, but no way in. Bodie paused at one and cupped his hands peering in through the filthy glass. The inside was vast, with high ceilings. It looked like an old equestrian training shed, the type of which Bodie had seen before, courtesy of one of his many girlfriends. In fact it had been the girl's confident and pert seat on a horse that had attracted him to her in the first place.

This shed didn't contain the arena and stands of an active training shed though. It was filled with rows and rows of stored items. Boxes, pieces of machinery, ancient furniture, tarpaulin covered objects - junk in other words, all piled up in a random maze of clutter. Jess was ahead trying all the windows, rattling the bars. The door at the far end looked more promising. An ordinary lock. He carefully removed Doyle's arm from around his neck and pushed him gently in Jess's direction. “Here love, hold him for a minute.”

Doyle revived enough to throw a cutting look at his partner, as Jess ducked under his arm and came up flush against his side.

Bodie aimed his gun at the lock. “Get behind me.” He told the girl and she obeyed at once, Doyle limping wearily beside her. The Browning blatted twice and the lock splinted.

Triumphant voices came from the front of the shed and Bodie cast a quick look in their direction, before kicking the door open. Roughly he reached for his partner and half pulled, half carried him inside. Jess followed and Bodie shut the door, turning to find something to push against it. It was immediately obvious the shed hadn't been used in a long time, Dust coated every surface and the sawdust on the floor was old and powdery. A stale damp odour permeated the air and Jess wrinkled her nose against it. There was a large wooden crate filled with machinery parts, next to the wall and Bodie heaved at it. She came to help and together they pushed it against the door.

“It won't stop them, but it'll slow them,” Bodie said harshly, and fumbled in his pocket for the RT again. He flicked the switch and the static hissed from the handset. Disgusted he shoved it back in his pocket.

He glanced back at Doyle, barely standing and then the girl, who was looking fearfully at the door and motioned them both into the maze of piled objects. “Behind here. Doyle?”

Their gazes met, that quicksilver flash of understanding passed between them, and both knew what to do. Doyle nodded briefly and gestured to Jess.

She moved across to him and he leaned heavily onto her shoulder as he limped across to a stack of broken crates. He was breathing erratically in short gasps, and alarmed, she reached up and felt the side of his face. He moved his head away, wincing slightly, but not quickly enough. He was on fire. She turned around to tell Bodie this, but Bodie was crouched down, to one side of the shed door. She was pretty sure he knew anyway. They seemed to be able to communicate quite well without words, she had no idea how, but they'd been doing it all along. Still, she wanted to make sure he knew how ill his partner really was.

“Quickly,” Doyle said to her hoarsely and Bodie turned at his voice. He saw Jess looking frantically at him and made a flapping motion with his hand before putting his finger to his lips and pointing to the door. She got the message and ducked with Doyle behind the clutter.

Doyle had his gun in his fist, finger on the trigger and he held it up next to his cheek, ready to jump out and start firing even though he knew he didn't have the agility to help Bodie. He slid his eyes towards the girl. She was huddled down next to him, staring at him with that intensity he found bewildering.

Her eyes were green. He blinked, pleased with the revelation. His vision was almost back to normal, just a faint shimmer now, and of course that pinching at the edges, that was happening more and more frequently with the waves of dizziness he was experiencing. He craned upwards and peered very carefully over the edge of the barrier. Bodie was still crouched by the blocked doorway.

When it came, it was loud and sudden. A heavy thump on the door, and then another. The crate of machine parts shifted slightly. Bodie stood up and fired his gun at the door and the movement abruptly stopped, the silence shockingly loud in the dusty air.

Bodie wasn't a highly trained and valued member of CI5 for nothing. He correctly predicted what would follow his barrage of slugs at the door and accordingly threw himself down out of the line of fire. The AK47 was shockingly loud, shredding the wooden door into a splintery mess and sending Bodie rolling out of the way in the opposite direction.

The crate moved again as someone threw his shoulder against it. A gap appeared and a figure appeared in that gap. Bodie fired again but his bullets slammed harmlessly into the surrounding wooden framework. He ejected his empty clip and rapidly inserted his remaining full one. He looked across at Doyle and Doyle nodded back.

Doyle's eyes were enormous again, his face white and strained, but Bodie knew that he would give everything he had to hold up his end. How, in that state he couldn't imagine, but if there was one thing Bodie had learned about Ray Doyle over the years, it was that he was unpredictable. Doyle saw him hesitating, worrying and gave him a reassuring wink. Bodie shook his head, irritation and fond exasperation colliding, so that he didn't know whether to laugh or frown at his partner; but it was no light-hearted matter. Not against an AK47, not with a partner who by rights, should be in a hospital bed.

Doyle knew what Bodie was thinking and wholeheartedly agreed with him. He was almost useless as a back up and the girl had done enough. “Go hide,” he ordered her. She shook her head, terrified and unwilling. He pushed her with his left hand. “Go on, we can't concentrate with you in danger.”

She wanted to tell him that he was in more danger from passing out, than from stopping a bullet, whether she was there or not. He looked like death warmed up, his skin sheened and colourless, but more gunfire had him pushing her ruthlessly away and she reluctantly rose to a crouch and scuttled off into the maze. Doyle waited, breathing shallowly, adrenaline the only thing keeping him going. He listened, feeling his heart thud against his rib cage, his breathing harsh and his vision pinching and wavering.

The air shifted and there was a soft footfall. They were inside.

He whipped up and over the large trunk he was crouched behind and let off a couple of shots. The automatic rifle spat back in his direction and he dropped again, scuttling on hands and knees in the opposite direction from Bodie.

Doyle knew, as did Bodie, that to take on an AK47 with a handgun was suicidal. They needed to fight fire with fire; they needed one of those assault rifles. Bodie couldn't do it alone and Doyle couldn't back him up effectively. He had to draw them away, give Bodie a chance.

He felt bullets rip into the floor, spitting up the sawdust, dangerously close to his injured foot as he turned the corner, biting his lip against the pain racking his body. The butt of the gun felt slick and sweaty in his hands now and he pressed his back against a stack of mouldy hay bales and wiped his sleeve across his forehead. The chain attached to the cuff around his wrist, clinked gently, a dead giveaway to his position. Vaguely he felt wetness on his neck and knew that the gash was bleeding again, and he was glad Jess wasn't there to see it. He held the gun barrel up to rest against the side of his face, both hands gripping the butt, hard, to stop the shaking and he cocked his head, straining to hear.

********************  
 **Chapter 21**

 

Bodie cat footed around a stripped down old Hillman, to an area of the shed where cardboard boxes were piled haphazardly upon one another, like mini brown skyscrapers. There were two stalking him, but whether either had an assault rifle, he couldn't tell. He looked for somewhere to surprise them and found the perfect spot, a tarpaulin covered item, about the same height as himself. Bodie cautiously lifted the dusty tarp and found that it concealed a gilt edged mirror.

The mirror was so ugly he wasn't surprised that it had been dumped out here. It was a heavy Victorian piece and sat on a squat oak base. The surface was pitted and speckled with green patches and, distorted by the old glass, his wavering reflection stared back at him, cool calm and controlled. But his eyes burned blue.

Shots from the other end of the shed had his head whipping around away from the mirror. Doyle!

No time to ponder the fate of his partner, but Doyle was as tough as they came, even with impaired ability. Bodie had faith in his partner but he couldn't help either of them until he'd disarmed the assault rifles. He lifted the tarp and stepped behind the mirror and waited, listening intently. They were quiet, the men who were after him, walking slowly and carefully, but Bodie heard them.

He waited, counting slowly, Browning 9mm up and ready. At the last minute, he whipped out from under the tarp; gun held two handed and pumped two shots into the chest of the man in the lead. He wasn't the one with the assault rifle and Bodie leapt back instantly as the second man fired from the hip. Heat scorched his upper arm, a sizzling sting of pain. The mirror shattered into a million pieces, along with seven years bad luck, and Bodie flung himself desperately away, scrabbling backwards and rolling expertly to his feet. There was no cover, he saw that straight away. The tower of cardboard boxes and a large cast iron stand, piled high with heavy wooden beams lay straight in front of him.

Evan Wilson, holding the assault rifle stepped up behind him, muzzle up and pointing and a triumphant look crossed his face. Bodie turned quickly, eyes flaring in sudden panic, visions of his body, riddled with bullets, flying back across the floor in a bloody smear.

Something, round and black fell swiftly through the air, a faint whistling noise accompanying it. It fell with unnerving accuracy and smacked Wilson in the back of his fair head with a satisfying thump. Wilson fell forward without a sound and the assault rifle flew from his nerveless hands skittering across the sawdust to slide under the cast iron stand.

Bodie with a strangled cry dived after it, missed and his groping fingers under the stand came up tantalising short of the strap. Swearing viciously he swung around to see what had hit the now unconscious man. A shotput ball was rolling towards him, sawdust sticking to a reddish smear as it came to a rest among the shattered pieces of mirror. Bodie stared at it in disbelief and then up to the tower of cardboard boxes. The girl Jess was perched precariously up there; face nearly as white as Doyle's and with a second ball in her other hand. She stared wide-eyed at Bodie, biting her bottom lip.

Bodie grinned in admiration at her skill, and put a finger warningly to his lips. She nodded solemnly, hefted the second ball, and pointed to her left. Bodie got the message. With another angry glare at the unreachable assault rifle, he trotted carefully in the direction she had pointed, towards Doyle.

*************************  
Doyle could hear men moving towards him, stealthily, carefully, but the slight crunch of their feet in the old wood shavings gave them away. The gun felt cold in his hands, but the barrel was warm against his cheek and Doyle waited, worrying about his accuracy with his swimming vision.

He was still the best shot with a handgun on the squad and that had to count for something. It had to count when it mattered as much as it did now. He'd heard the noise of the assault rifle at the other end of the shed, and had a momentary anxiety for Bodie, even though he knew Bodie was more than capable of keeping himself alive. Had done so in far worse situations than this. Doyle leaned his head back against the hay, held onto his gun and waited.

Bodie slunk along the clutter, silent as death. His face was hard, cold and ruthless. He peered over the top of a crate filled with old saddles and saw two men, one short but capably holding another AK47, the other slightly older, greying, brandishing a handgun. Midnight blue eyes fixed unblinkingly on the AK47; Bodie flexed his hands and lifted his semi auto. The men, creeping towards Doyle, hadn't heard him. Bodie hadn't expected them too. His former SAS training saw to that.

“What about the other one?”

”Never mind him. Just get that curly haired one. And make sure he's dead.”

Bodie was close enough to hear those hushed remarks and fury surged through his veins. They were still, single-mindedly after Doyle. What in God's name had he seen, heard, discovered, that made these lunatics so desperate to silence him? These men, they wouldn't rest till his partner was dead. Bodie wasn't going to let that happen.

The shed was quiet, no sound or movement from Doyle and Bodie was nervous, recalling the gunfire earlier. He crept closer, relying on the element of surprise to get that rifle. His feet came down carefully, his attention as sharp as a hunting wolf.

And then the unimaginable happened.

The silence was shattered by a burst of static.

_“3.7 respond. Come in 3.7_.”

“Shit.” Bodie dived to the floor, whipped the RT out and thumbed it on as a sudden deafening volley of bullets raked the row of clutter immediately where he'd been standing.

Doyle struggled to his feet, thrust his gun out in front of him and tried to balance his weight as evenly as he could. Sweat broke out across his forehead and his equilibrium tipped alarmingly, but his trigger finger was rock steady and he methodically pumped a series of bullets along the clutter in front of him, hoping to God some of them had penetrated to hit the bastards on the other side.

Bodie was mouthing desperately into the RT. “A large shed, it's on a service lane, south west off Annersley road. We need back up.”

“Get the other one,” Gagen screamed, “It's the other one we want, kill him.”

Steele turned back to Doyle who instantly dropped back down under cover. Like clockwork, timed to perfection, from years of practice as partners, Bodie instantly reappeared, took aim and fired two shots before the unbelievable happened. The trigger seized.

A stoppage! Bodie swore violently. Frantically he jerked at the slide, trying to loosen the jammed round, but the momentum with Doyle was lost.

Steele heard Bodie trying to clear his semi auto and stepped out of hiding bringing the deadly weapon up in his hands. He had a nasty grin on his face as he pointed it in Bodie's direction. Bodie jerked his gaze up like a startled rabbit, locked it on the open barrel of the rifle, pointed unerringly at him.

Two shots rang out and Steele staggered, yelling in agony, a hole in his upper left shoulder. He twisted around to see Doyle, leaning unsteadily with his left hand on a closed wooden crate, right still gripped tight around the gun. He'd moved, crawled to a new position. Steele still had the assault rifle in a firm grip and he turned clumsily around, to point it towards Doyle who quickly dropped out of sight again.

Doyle had stopped him from mowing down Bodie, but he hadn't aimed to wound. And now they knew where he was. He looked around for somewhere else he could crawl to, without being seen. It didn't look promising and he needed to remain in a position to back up Bodie. He knew his partner, knew Bodie wouldn't give up trying to get that assault rifle. He checked his weapon and wiped his left hand across his face, it came away, wet and bloody and Doyle felt quite weak, not even the adrenaline able to keep the darkness from the edges of his vision now.

Bodie had sought cover while wrestling with his unresponsive weapon. He finally dislodged the jammed round just as a prickling on the back of his neck warned him of someone behind him, and he spun quickly, bringing up an arm just in time, knocking aside the handgun that had been aimed at his back. Tiny Dawson grunted, surprised, but didn't drop his gun. Bodie brought his other arm up, and slammed a punch into Tiny's gut that would have felled a lesser man in an instant. Tiny Dawson wasn't a lesser man and he merely exhaled with the impact and swung out himself, latching on to the young agent's collar with one meaty fist.

Bodie was young, extremely fit, was solidly powerful, and had been trained to kill with his bare hands. But he had drastically miscalculated the strength and speed of Tiny, who not only hadn't relinquished his gun but now also had him in a firm neck lock. Bodie brought his right arm up, ready to fire over his shoulder, but Tiny smashed his gun down on his arm and Bodie lost his grip on his weapon which went flying, skidding along the floor towards an old piece of rusted machinery, so dilapidated that its original purpose was anyone's guess.

Gagen was pleased. He raised his voice, aiming it in Doyle's direction. “Come out, or your friend's dead.”

Doyle paused, breathing harshly trying to clear his mind enough to think. He heard Bodie's voice, strangled and hoarse. “Don't listen to him Doyle, you know the score, I'm dead anyway.”

Doyle did know, they wouldn't let Bodie go, anymore than they would let him go. In his present dizzy condition, they were likely to get him anyway. But maybe he could give Bodie an edge.

He took a deep breath and dragged himself upright again, gun held out, but it was finally too much, even for him. The ground tilted alarmingly and so did he. Something hot whizzed past his ear, narrowly missing the site of his injury and he automatically jerked his head away - which immediately protested this unwise decision by blanking out his vision completely, and his equilibrium along with it.

Bodie saw his partner rising, instinctively backing him up, ready to fire, and he saw the grey haired man appear from behind an old bureau next to the rusted machinery, gun out as though he'd been waiting for him.

He saw, almost in slow motion, the man fire, the bullet discharge with a spurt of flame, the casing spring, red hot from the weapon, and flick away.

His eyes frantically sought his partner, as if that alone could warn him, but Doyle's head had already snapped sideways, as the bullet nicked him, his body following, and he went down heavily, cracking his skull against the edge of the wooden crate as he crumpled.

“Doyle!” Fear and fury lent Bodie strength and he slammed his elbow back, into Tiny's midriff. Tiny grunted with the impact and loosened his hold but it was much too late.

Bodie could see the outflung right hand of his partner as he struggled. It wasn't moving.

The RT crackled again and he heard Cowley's voice, muffled in his pocket. “3.7, imperative you keep 4.5 alive at all costs. Repeat. Keep 4.5 alive at any cost.”

Christ, Bodie twisted sharply. He was strong and he could fight and fight well, but this bloke was like a solid brick wall. And all the time his mind was working furiously.

Why in God's name did they want Doyle dead so badly. What did he know? Just an arms deal, he'd said, but it had to be more than that. Cowley obviously had a hunch. Keep Doyle alive? Well, he was trying wasn't he? Provided Doyle wasn't already dead that is - his head had snapped sideways as though he'd stopped the bullet and Bodie was sick at the very thought. The old man certainly picked a fine time to decide that they weren't expendable after all.

He watched Steele approach the edge of the crate, his faced filled with hate, his left arm running red.

Bodie tried to draw air past the arm locked around his windpipe, knowing that if he was still alive, Doyle would try something and he'd have to be ready. He glared at those curled fingers willing them to move. But Steele merely stood, lifted the AK47 and pointed it, not even bothering to aim.

“No,” Bodie yelled again and struggled anew to break free of the big man's grip. The sound of a gun firing was loud and shocking. Bodie froze, eyes seeking that outstretched hand, the fingers curled and still. Doyle hadn't moved.

Steele went down clutching at his hip, bellowing, the AK47 dropping with a clatter on the floor. Bodie jerked his eyes sideways, searching for the unlikely source of that gunfire. And saw the girl.

She was crouched on her heels, peering from the far side of the rusted piece of farming machinery, quite close to the man with the handgun. She held Bodie's semi auto, the gun appearing monstrous in her slim tanned hand. Bodie could see it shaking, her face shocked, leeched of colour. Gagen reacted instantly, spinning around and instinctively whipping his handgun out, catching her in the side of the face, with the heavy butt. She went flying backwards, Bodie's gun spilling from her grasp as she rolled groggily to hands and knees, spitting blood.

It was sufficient for Bodie. Tiny had been distracted just enough for Bodie to get the upper hand. He twisted, and grabbed the handgun, giving it a savage tug. Tiny wrestled it with him. Bodie twisted and kicked out and he kicked low and dirty. A low moan issued from the big man's throat and Bodie savagely chopped him under the chin and as Tiny fell forward followed through with another to the back of the head.

Tiny staggered but still didn't go down and didn't let go of the gun, although his grip slipped from the butt. Bodie tugged harder, managed to pull it from the bigger man's grasp but Tiny was quick enough to block Bodie from bringing it up to use. He used his other hand to clamp on Bodie's upper left arm, squeezing. Blinding hot pain erupted, white spots danced before his eyes. Bodie gave an agonised yell and clawed at the digging fingers. They came away bloody and startled he saw that the blood was his, seeping through his jacket sleeve. Tiny tried again, but Bodie blocked him. They lurched sideways, closer to the crate shielding Doyle.

Bodie cast a desperate look in that direction, as he fought the muscled Tiny, could see his partner, lying awkwardly on the floor, his left arm under his hip, his right outstretched, eyes only half open. He still couldn't tell if Doyle was alive or not. There was a small rivulet of blood under his head, and Bodie could see the gash on his head bleeding copiously.

“For Christ's sake Doyle!” Bodie willed his partner to move, to show that he was still breathing.

Gagen had walked calmly around to the back of the crate. He stopped when he saw Doyle on the floor. The lad wasn't moving, but Gagen wasn't taking any chances. The CI5 agent had proven himself astonishingly resourceful and he wouldn't underestimate him again. He kept his distance, noticing the outflung right arm, the empty hand and smiled. The lad had lost his weapon.

“Finally,” he said in satisfaction. “You've caused me a great deal of trouble…”

He lifted his gun.

Jess gained her feet, pushed her hair from her eyes, and wiped her face, smearing the blood from the cut in her lip.

Bodie wrestled Tiny and his mouth opened ready to yell, even knowing as he did so, that he was too late, and too far away to do anything.

Gagen's finger began to squeeze the trigger and Jess screamed, her hands coming to her blood smeared lips in horror.

Doyle moved.

He moved suddenly and unexpectedly, whipping his left arm up from under his hip, fist around the semi auto, pointing and shooting in one smooth motion.

Gagen couldn't have known of Doyle's enviable ability to handle a gun with either hand. He may not have believed it if he had. The slugs hit him, twice in the chest, the impact flinging him backwards, to land among the wood shavings of the floor. He slid to a stop, his eyes staring at the vast ceiling of the old equestrian shed, still showing surprise, still showing shock, and then, showing nothing at all.

Steele moaned, tried to reach the assault rifle.

Bodie wrenched free of Tiny turned in the same instant and pointed Tiny's automatic right back at him. “Just give me an excuse!” he snarled savagely. “Just one! And I swear I'll blow your brains inside out!”

Tiny halted immediately. The man in front of him was oh so cool, controlled, cold face unreadable, but his lips were white and his eyes were wild. Tiny believed him.

Bodie kept the automatic trained on him and backed up quickly. He glanced down at Gagen but the man's eyes were staring sightlessly. Steele lay nearby his hands clutching his hip, and Bodie scooped up the assault rifle, checked the safety catch was off and wrapped his finger around the trigger. He kicked Gagen's weapon away from Steele with his foot.

“Jess, see to Doyle, quickly.” Bodie risked a glance down himself, but Doyle's eyes were open, watching him, utter weariness in their green-blue depths. His gun was still in his left fist, but he hadn't moved. Bodie tucked Tiny's automatic into his waistband and squatted down to his partner, keeping the AK47 firmly aimed at the large hulking man.

Jess skidded to a stop beside him and her fingers automatically went to Doyle's neck, checking his pulse. Doyle's eyes slid to her and he let go of his gun and slowly lifted his hand. He brushed his knuckles softly across her cheek and his thumb gently wiped the blood from her mouth. Jess could feel his pulse beneath her fingers but couldn't concentrate on monitoring it. She grasped his hand in her own. Tears welled and fell, leaving dirty streaks on her grimy face.

“What is it?” Bodie demanded adrenaline surging so strongly, his body was trembling with it.

She shook her head, unable to speak and Bodie, fearing the worst, leaned past her to stare fixedly into Doyle's face himself.

“So help me Doyle, don't you dare die on me now,” Bodie said harshly, eyes blazing. He pulled the RT out of his pocket and flicked it on, calling for an ambulance, alternating his fierce gaze between the two men he was guarding and his partner.

Doyle just stared back at him, those wide expressive eyes somehow calm now and Bodie panicked. “You hear me Ray? For Christ's sake! Don't you dare die!”

Ray Doyle's lips parted. It seemed a huge effort, but he clearly wanted to say something. Bodie bent closer, putting his ear to his partner's mouth, going cold all over.

Doyle whispered, and even in that barely audible voice, there was no mistaking Ray Doyle's exasperated tone. “'Course I won't,” he said, and then added, almost as an afterthought. “Idiot.”

And those greenish-blue eyes finally closed and his body relaxed.

***************************  
 **Chapter 22**

 

George Cowley stood in the dank mustiness of the shed and gazed sternly down at his two alleged ace operatives. Both men looked wet, exhausted, stubbled, filthy, and battered and their chief was privately concerned, both for the severe injuries on one, and the fierce protectiveness of the other.

Bodie was helping the ambulance officers remove Doyle's jacket and shirt, in order to insert IV lines. Doyle was uncooperative, out to the world and the reason was quite clear by the blood soaked padding held against the right side of his head by his very worried partner.

Cowley also eyed the blood running from the tear in Bodie's sleeve. He'd tried to persuade him to have it seen to but Bodie had resisted, forcing them to tend to Doyle first. He had also flatly refused any attention to the still moaning Steele until his partner was out of danger. The attending medics had taken one look at his face and obeyed without arguing. Cowley could see that Bodie was clearly on edge, his slow burning fuse had finally fizzed to detonation, and he marvelled that there weren't more bodies to clean up.

Bodie crouched now, supporting his partner's upper body off the floor, firmly holding the pad in place over the gash. Doyle's curly head rested against his partner's shoulder, while the ambulance attendants tugged on the sleeves of his leather jacket struggling to pull them over the handcuffs still around his wrists.

Cowley didn't have any keys on him; they'd have to be removed at the hospital, unless the local police turned up with a set first. He spoke quietly into his RT, issuing orders and heard the faint sound of sirens wailing in the distance as the local constabulary sped to the scene.

A girl sat nearby, shaking slightly, arms hugging her knees to her. Cowley studied her while he spoke to headquarters. He didn't as yet know who she was but she displayed the same battered condition as his men, her mouth swollen and bloodied on one side, dirt and tears streaking her cheeks, her mass of red gold hair tangled into a snarl. A red blanket was draped over her shoulders; another on standby for Doyle once they'd removed his clothing.

Lucas and McCabe were searching the shed, where Bodie had informed them of another two bodies and Murphy stood with the assault rifle steadily pointed at the big man Bodie had identified as the muscle man who had snatched Doyle from the pub.

“Did Doyle tell you what he saw?” Cowley enquired finally as the sleeves finally came over the cuffs and the jacket was peeled off. The holster was removed, and the shirt quickly followed, wadded up and set aside, more red than yellow and Cowley looked at it angrily and then at the swollen red graze down his agent's neck and right shoulder blade. Doyle had lost enough blood to need a transfusion, enough fluid to be dehydrated, and the medics moved swiftly now, producing a stretcher and the equipment necessary to insert the IV drip. Bodie lifted Doyle's upper body and one of the medics swivelled around to lift his legs. Doyle was transferred safely to the stretcher, and only then, did Bodie step away and allow the medics to do their jobs.

He turned to face his boss and shook his head. “He can't remember. He has no idea.”

“Nothing?” Cowley was alarmed and dismayed at this news. He hadn't considered the possibility that Doyle would have no recollection of the incident responsible for his kidnapping and near death.

“With that whack on the head?” Bodie rubbed a hand furiously over his face, watching as the medic attending Doyle inserted a needle into a vein and fussed with the lines connecting it. “It's a wonder he knew who I was.”

“It's imperative he remember, Bodie.”

Bodie rounded savagely on his boss, pushed beyond endurance. “Yeah, providing it's imperative that he doesn't die first.”

Cowley looked at his young agent with marked disfavour. “What does he remember?”

Bodie glared at him. “He remembers the bike, parts of a fight, he can't recall faces, but he had a sense of interrupting something, he thought it was an IRA deal.”

“Why would he think that?”

Bodie jerked his head towards the girl and Cowley glanced curiously at her. “Jess heard them talking.”

It was a bitter blow, Cowley fumed inwardly, seeing his trump card shrivelling up and dying before his eyes.

Doyle was now safely bundled up, tubes in, red blanket tucked securely around him. Another ambulance had arrived to deal with Steele, summoned by Cowley over the RT after Bodie had refused to allow him in the same one as his partner. Lucas and McCabe reappeared.

“There's only one body back there, Bodie.” Lucas said indicating the far reaches of the shed with an inclination of his head. His gun was still in his hand and his youthful face was hard. He glanced at Doyle and his eyes narrowed. “Unfortunately.”

“The one you shot” McCabe confirmed with a contemptuous look at Steele, followed by an admiring one for Jess. “The bloke that was brained by the ball has done a runner.”

Cowley took charge. “You,” he said to Bodie in a voice that brooked no argument. “Go with Doyle and get that arm seen to.” He indicated Jess with an inclination of his head. “Take her with you and get her checked over as well. Stay at the hospital. I'll come along presently, as soon as I've finished up here.”

Glad to go, Bodie walked over to Jess. He could see her trembling, finely, like a leaf in the wind. She looked utterly exhausted, her mouth swollen, bruised and smeared with blood. He felt a sudden surge of gratitude to her, for sticking with Doyle all this time. If she hadn't been there… he didn't want to even think about what would have happened to his partner, if she hadn't had idiosyncratic tendencies to go looking for ancient roads.

He leaned down to help her to her feet, but her co-ordination seemed to have deserted her and she clung to his good arm, swaying slightly. He raised a brow at her and she managed to spark enough ire to say: “Don't you dare say I have no stamina.”

“No,” Bodie said, very softly. “No, I won't say that.”

Seeing that she was done in, he instead lifted her effortlessly into his arms. She gave a small sigh and snuggled into him. “Will he be alright?” Her voice was muffled, a combination of the swelling around her mouth and the fact that her face was buried into his jacket.

“He will be,” Bodie told her, and she wasn't at all sure he was joking, when he added. “Doyle's like a cat. Nine Lives. By my reckoning, he still has six to go.”

Cowley turned and surveyed the shed thoughtfully as Doyle was wheeled out on the trolley, Bodie walking beside him, carrying the girl. He was still standing there when the siren was switched on and the ambulance pulled swiftly away.

**********************  
 **Chapter 23**

 

Bodie felt exhausted. He had to admit it, the adrenaline draining away to leave him lethargic and sleepy, now that the danger had passed. Doyle was in good hands, even if he did look like a casualty from a war zone. The cuffs had been removed and his wrists were bandaged. Antibiotics to fight the infection had been administered to the feed line.

X-rays were being arranged and stitches now closed that awful gash in his head; it and the graze down his neck and shoulder swabbed and disinfected and Bodie winced, thinking it fortunate indeed, that his partner remained unconscious through these nasty procedures.

His ankle had yet to be examined, but right now Bodie was smiling at the sight of two young nurses who had come to strip off his filthy clothes and give him a wash. Doyle, as though his internal radar for pretty girls had alerted him, had started to come around and was groggily protesting their attempts to peal his snug jeans off his legs. Bodie privately thought they'd never do it; it still amazed him how Doyle got into them in the first place, although he seemed to wear them comfortably enough.

He decided to lend a hand; after all, the nurses were very pretty and he knew full well that had Doyle been coherent he wouldn't have minded at all. He smiled charmingly at them, well as charmingly as he could, given his own filthy state - the only clean part of him being the white bandage wrapped around the bullet graze on his upper arm.

He leaned over the bed and spoke to his partner, very aware, in the sterile environment of the room, of the dried blood in Doyle's hair, the mud and grime on his skin. “Come on mate, let them have their way with you. You do need a bath.”

He could smell damp earth and the sharp scent of disinfectant, which didn't quite mask the coppery tang of the blood-stiffened curls.

Doyle's eyes blinked sleepily, bright with fever and he saw his partner looking down at him. He moved his arms as though to force himself upright, but Bodie stopped him. “Ah ah! Just you lie still my son, you'll pull those lines out and you need the blood. Now just let these lovely young ladies clean you up a bit eh?”

Doyle frowned and moved his head restlessly and Bodie instinctively knew what his partner was asking. “Jess is fine, I'm about to go see her.” He patted Doyle's shoulder soothingly. “Now be a good boy and don't do anything I wouldn't do.”

But those expressive eyes had already closed again. Bodie leaned in, suddenly remembering. “Ray…Ray…?”

He saw the struggle, knew Doyle was still aware of him.

Bodie pressed on quickly, taking advantage of his partner's groggy state: “Just who did you sleep with the other night?”

Doyle didn't open his eyes, but his lips curled, just a fraction and then he relaxed again.

Grinning, Bodie straightened up; significantly less worried and cast an eye to the drips steadily pumping their vital fluids into his partner's arm.

“Take good care of him,” he said and winked at the girls. They smiled back at him, amused at this virile, handsome, hard looking man, being so concerned over his friend.

“He'll be out in no time,” the brunette said, in an obvious attempt to reduce his worry.

Bodie's smile widened. Knowing his partners predilection for getting discharged sooner than he should, he shook his head and said: “You have no idea.”

The blond haired one gazed at Doyle. “Perhaps we'll wait for him to wake up more before washing him, it seems to be disturbing him.”

“Well I can't blame him, it'd disturb me too,” Bodie said, flirting automatically, happy at the lack of competition while Doyle was out to the world. He glanced down at his sleeping partner. Doyle looked almost fragile in the white bed but Bodie knew he wasn't. Tough as nails was Ray Doyle and he'd prove it to anyone who said otherwise.

He left them tugging at the hems of Doyle's jeans, mindful of the heavily bandaged ankle, and went in search of coffee. There was a vending machine at the end of the corridor and, digging in his pockets for coins, Bodie strolled towards it, tired and wanting nothing more than to curl up somewhere and go to sleep.

The ward on the far side of the coffee machine contained Steele, one of the men that had tried to kill Doyle. Bodie scowled, angry that they were in the same hospital never mind the same floor, but there was a shortage of beds, so the attending registrar had informed him. The uniformed policeman standing outside the door nodded to him in recognition as he stopped at the machine.

Behind him the two nurses left Doyle's room, chatting brightly, presumably taking his ripped and filthy jeans to be cleaned.

Bodie pushed coins into the slot of the vending machine as a harassed looking young doctor hurried down the corridor and entered the room where Steele lay, still sedated. Bodie's RT beeped. “ _Alpha to 3.7._ ”

Bodie juggled the RT one handed from his pocket, while pushing the buttons for white coffee. Hot liquid gurgled into the cup as he thumbed the switch. “3.7.”

The doctor suddenly emerged out of Steele's room, eyes a bit wild.

Cowley's voice came from the RT, sharp and pressing. “A sniper took out your muscle man at the police station. He's dead.”

The doctor spun urgently to the policeman at the door, babbling. “He's been shot. Again. Through the window. Someone was outside the window.”

Bodie's head jerked up, the coffee abandoned, the weariness abruptly vanishing as alarm bells started ringing inside his head, screaming a warning, alerting his senses to overdrive.

The RT squawked again as the doctor grabbed the policeman's arm, dragging him into the room, shocked and stammering. “He's dead….”

“ _3.7! Do not leave 4.5 under any circumstances…._ ”

And the glass panel to Doyle's room exploded outwards in a starburst of glittering shards, tinkling like music notes as they scattered over the floor.

Bodie was sprinting, pelting back down the corridor to Doyle's room, his Browning in his fist, heart hammering,

Plaster exploded from the wall in two places as bullets slammed into it.

Cowley's voice was still coming tinnily from the RT. “ _…There may be an attempt on his life.._ ”

Bodie erupted through the shattered door into Doyle's room, landing in a low crouch, gun out, eyes flicking in all directions. A shadow moved at the exterior window and Bodie looked up.

A matching starburst and bullet hole decorated the glass and Doyle lay on the floor, deathly still, the white hospital sheet tangled around his naked hips and legs, his chest covered in bright red blood, spreading and soaking into the linen, shockingly vivid against the pristine whiteness.

Bodie felt as if his heart had stopped and the room claustrophobically closed in on him, choking him with its crushing darkness.

He stared at his partner, face draining, head spinning, unable to take it in, and then without even knowing how he got there, he was suddenly crouching next to the supine body, mind blanking at what to do first, in order to stem that copious bleeding.

Instinctively, he reached out to his partner, as though to shake him, and a bright red drop landed on the back of his hand. Startled Bodie looked up. Another drop fell, landing on his cheek. He raised the back of his hand to his cheek, wiped it away. The plastic blood bottle swayed drunkenly above him, still hanging from the metal stand. It was ruptured, drained of its contents, still leaking intermittently onto the body on the floor. The drip lines had ripped from Doyle's arm and dangled uselessly, dribbling their precious liquid to join the spreading deluge across the linoleum.

“Christ! _Ray…_ ”

A voice came to him. Halting, hoarse and croaky. And unquestionably laced with a spark of temper. “Well! What.. are you waiting for? Do…do. you think… I can go after him? Starkers? I only just…got off the bed...in time”

Bodie grinned suddenly, relief flooding him like a tide, surging up and clearing his head, as greenish-blue eyes gazed testily up at him. He didn't know how Doyle had known the gunman was there, at the window, but his sixth sense for danger was evidently as strong as ever. He reached out, and patted his very much alive partner on the shoulder before springing up and leaping to the window, his training taking over instantly.

He heard, very faintly, running footsteps outside, reverberating tinnily into the distance. Scaffolding. There was scaffolding set up, nearly invisible against the line of the window. Painting? Repairs? It didn't matter now; it had served its purpose for a gunman intent on killing two men helpless in their beds.

Bodie swore and tugged at the window but it was locked shut. He pushed his face against the glass, seeing a vague shape fleeing to the far end. His RT was in his hand as he pelted out the door and for the exit, leaving his partner on the floor, clutching the sheet decently to his lean hips, trying to retain some of his dignity as several nurses and orderlies rushed in.

“3.7 to Alpha. Suspect on the scaffolding outside 4.5's room. Attempt has already been made.” He paused as he took the stairs two at a time and barrelled to the front doors, dodging staff and visitors alike. He took the corner at a rate of knots, sprinting to the far end, where the scaffolding steps were set up. A car screeched in ahead of him and Bodie put his head down, legs pumping, fiercely determined that the bastard wasn't going to get away, to have another crack at his partner. The shadowy shape was dropping from the last set of stairs as the car hauled up and Bodie was too far away. Those crucial seconds he had spent seeing if Doyle was alive was enough to give the assassin a good enough head start.

But there was something familiar about the car, and as Bodie started to slow down, another one came in from the other end. Lucas and McCabe exploded from the Cortina, guns out, sheltering behind their open doors.

“Hold it,” McCabe bellowed.

Cowley and Murphy alighted from the other car as Bodie arrived panting, legs trembling.

“Eamon Moloney,” Cowley said in satisfaction as the man sullenly dropped his gun at Murphy's urging. He walked up to him and smiled grimly. “Your boss is a powerful man. We've never been able to pin him for IRA sympathies, but now we can, thanks to you.”

He gazed at Moloney for several seconds and his face, if anything became grimmer, anger flaring across his shrewd eyes, his voice distinct and ruthless. “You made a mistake going after my man. A big mistake. You see, he can't remember what he saw, yesterday in the pub. That injury to his head is responsible; he has no recollection at all of the events directly preceding it. If you'd left sleeping dogs lie, no doubt you'd have got away with it.”

Bodie was bent at the waist drawing oxygen into his starved lungs. Cowley looked at him critically. “Out of shape 3.7? Perhaps a week with Macklin will improve your fitness.”

Bodie, hurt to the quick, protested: “I've been hauling Doyle's carcass over the moors on two hours sleep, sir.”

“That's no excuse.” Cowley returned to his car as the RT beeped, “Alpha. Aye. Patch him through.”

Bodie waited as McCabe and Lucas took Moloney into custody. Cowley signed off the RT and looked at Bodie, and Bodie was surprised to see a flash of concern in the old man's steely eyes. “Doyle?”

Bodie inhaled, straightened up. “He's alright, sir, currently naked in bed, with a couple of pretty nurses fussing over him.”

Cowley gave his irrepressible agent a hard look and gestured him over. “That was the police. They found your car on Anthony Canavagh's property, where you said the ruins were. They also found Canavagh. A single shot to the head.” He turned his sandy head and glared at Moloney. “The deal had gone bad, and Doyle escaped. Moloney here was covering his own back, and his boss', getting rid of anyone involved in the deal that day in the pub. Including Doyle. He's a lucky man.”

“Yeah well,” Bodie shrugged, suddenly very, very tired. “He's got the luck of the devil hasn't he?”

Cowley smiled suddenly and looked at Bodie cryptically. “Aye, he has that, Bodie, he has that.”

*********************  
 **Chapter 24**

 

The hotel had a nice bar and plenty of cosy booths and Bodie led Doyle in, rubbing his hands in anticipation, wanting nothing more than a good meal, good company and a good woman. Doyle limped faintly, his ankle still twinging every so often.

He'd spent two weeks in hospital on Cowley's orders and uncharacteristically, Bodie hadn't helped him escape, using the infection and resulting fever as an excuse, making sure that he was well and truly healed before he'd been discharged.

Doyle had finally been released, only slightly mollified at his extended stay by getting three phone numbers off the nursing staff as opposed to Bodie's two. Bodie had argued the fairness of this, stating that Doyle's pathetic injuries gave him an unfair advantage and Doyle knew how to milk it. He'd been sitting on the edge of Doyle's bed at the time, sharing the bunch of purple grapes he'd brought in. For all his protesting, Bodie knew Doyle needed the rest; he'd slept a great deal while fighting the fever, and his headaches had taken some time to subside, although Doyle wouldn't admit to it.

“We never did find that heroin cut,” Doyle had said finally, leaning back on the white pillows, his hair fluffy and clean, courtesy of Julia, one of his more admiring, attentive nurses. His wrists and ankle remained bandaged, his face tired, and a bit on the thin side, but he looked decidedly better than when he'd first been brought in.

Bodie rumpled the paper bag and tossed it accurately into the bin by the door. “Oh? Didn't Cowley tell you? It was his sister that did it. Jimmy's sister.”

”Alice Croft?”

“Yeah, seems Jimmy stole that bad mix, took it to her, up north.” He glanced at his partner, smirking. “North north that is.”

Doyle grinned back at him.

“And she couldn't resist making a quid or two from it. Jimmy didn't approve, he was hooked on the stuff, but didn't want anyone sharing his fate. If you ask me he had morals to rival yours. Should have been a constable.”

Doyle's face was registering impatience and Bodie smiled beatifically, enjoying himself. “Why he took it to her in the first place, I'll never know, probably wasn't thinking straight but he was going to spill his guts to the drug squad. So she put a pillow over his face one night.”

“Poor Jimmy.” Doyle's face expressed the sadness he often felt at the wasted life of a drug user.

Bodie had swiftly changed the subject. “You haven't asked about Jess.”

“Cowley said she'd gone home.” He'd cocked a brow at his partner. “Didn't she?”

Bodie looked a picture of innocence. “Far as I know mate.”

But then Bodie had done some other arranging and was now feeling very smug as he looked around the hotel bar.

“What are we doing here?” Doyle asked, also gazing around. At Bodie's insistence he had dressed up, wearing an open necked white shirt and black trousers, his well-worn trainers replaced with soft leather. Bodie looked his usual elegant smooth self in expensive jacket and trousers.

“Heard they do good nosh here and plenty of it - steak, chicken.” Bodie stepped up to the bar and Doyle followed. Bodie turned slightly and added: “Good Australian wine.”

Doyle scoffed automatically. “No such thing as good Australian wine, Aussies can't make wine.”

Bodie's eyes flicked past his teammate and cringed. A voice said: “This from someone who drinks warm beer?”

Doyle spun around, recognising that voice instantly. He didn't, however, recognise the girl using it and stared in amazement. The lovely vision in front of him was slim, tanned, wearing some sort of floating flimsy barely there dress and smelled intoxicating. “Jess?”

Jess barely recognised him in return. He was a far cry from the filthy blood covered man on the moors and looked it. Still undeniably good looking, his young face open and boyish, those green-blue eyes no longer worried, unfocused and in pain; he now looked pleased to see her, a spark of desire evident in his intense gaze.

Her eyes skimmed him approvingly, from those soft clean curls spiralling around the tops of his shoulders, down his long lean frame, lingering on the three undone buttons of his shirt, to his left ankle, before swinging back up to meet his eyes. Oh my, she liked what she saw. A lot. He raised a brow, as though quite aware of her favourable opinion.

She laughed at him and Doyle could see her face clearly now, and it was immediately apparent why Bodie had named her a wood sprite, with her red gold hair, tanned skin and green eyes. The faint sprinkle of freckles across her nose gave her that young air, but her body quite plainly suggested to him that she wasn't. He had a sudden urge to skip dinner,

“I believe you owe me a thermal undershirt, Ray.”

He moved towards her, reached up a hand, entwined his fingers through the loose hair around her neck and brushed his thumb gently across the side of her mouth where the gun handle had split her lip. Her eyes shone and she stretched up to him and Doyle used that same hand to pull her closer, leaning down quite naturally to give her a gentle, questioning, kiss.

But Jess responded, liking his warm mouth and soft lips and it might have gone on further if not for a fascinated Bodie, pointedly clearing his throat behind them. Jess backed away, but Doyle didn't let go, instead guiding her into a tender embrace, feeling her hands slide up his back as he rested his cheek across the top of her soft hair, remembering her scent, how good she had smelled up on the moor, when everything had seemed so hopeless.

He still couldn't reconcile the woman in his arms with that gutsy athletic girl, who had quite literally saved his life. “I thought you'd gone home.”

“No, I can't, not with the hearing and everything, I have to give evidence. I'll be here for a bit yet.” She sounded pleased about it. “And you also owed me a dinner, remember?”

“And the other half of the undressing,” Bodie put in wickedly over his partner's shoulder and got an elbow in his stomach for his trouble.

Jess shot him a withering look, more reminiscent of the dirty jeans-clad girl on the moors. “I went to my cousin. She lives here in London. Actually.” She cast another glance at Bodie at his smooth dark looks, his lean handsome face. “I brought her with me, you know the old saying, two's company, three's a crowd, four's a party. Hope you don't mind.”

Bodie shook his head agreeably as he glanced between her and Doyle, seeing quite clearly how his partner was fixated with her. Jess turned to look behind her and beckoned to someone hovering by the far booth. Bodie looked up, prepared to be polite and instead took a second glance.

This girl was older than Jess, but shared her colouring, that same red gold hair and green eyes. But her skin was creamy white, her figure quite beautifully offset by her body hugging dress. Bodie brightened considerably, and the attraction was evidently mutual, her smile lingered on him before nodding to Doyle.

“This is Erin,” Jess introduced her. She gave another pointed look in Bodie's direction. “She's English and therefore, by your estimation, Bodie, has plenty of stamina.”

Doyle laughed, low, infectious and took her hand again as Bodie winced in remembrance.

“It's good to see you,” he said sincerely, ignoring his partner. “I never did thank you for getting me out of that cellar.”

“Oh don't worry,” Jess said and squeezed his hand, warm in hers, as warm as those wonderfully expressive eyes gazing down at her. Cleaned up, he was even more attractive than she remembered and she was glad Bodie had set this up. “You will, I'll see to that.”

The waitress approached and asked them if they wanted a table. Bodie nodded and extended his arm to Erin as they were led to a spot by the window. Doyle was still looking at Jess, smiling easily at her and Bodie from long habit scanned the window as he prepared to sit down.

There were a couple of men on the opposite side of the road, at the mouth of an alley. They were furtively looking around and one reached under his jacket for a parcel of some sort. Bodie shot a quick look at his partner. Doyle, attention on Jess hadn't yet looked out the window, but old habits died hard and Bodie knew he would. And he'd see the men, and that damned curiosity would flare up and before he could stop him, Doyle would be wandering over to suss it out. He stopped the waitress as she began to place the menus down.

“Er, wait a minute, if you don't mind,” he smiled winsomely at her. “I'd rather have that table over there, if that's ok. It's a bit drafty here and this young lady comes from a very warm climate.”

Doyle was gazing at him curiously, Jess in bafflement, but the waitress just shrugged, picked up the menus and led them to the other table.

Safely away from the window.

A bottle of Australian wine was placed in an ice bucket and Doyle didn't even notice. Bodie smiled happily, pleased with himself, for setting all this up, and right under his partner's nose too. Keeping Doyle in hospital while he arranged it had been no mean feat.

Now for a long relaxing evening and, turning to Erin, an even better night. He raised his glass to propose a toast.

And his RT beeped in his jacket pocket. Bodie froze. He and Doyle looked at each other.

_“3.7, respond_.”

******************

 

© Jaicen5 March 2009

 

With thanks to:  
pmgms  
CI5mates  
Angelfish45  
Sue and Carol  
For advice, corrections, and general encouragement


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